As relating mainly to strikes or concerted action, the question of arbitration and conciliation laws will be left for the next chapter; but we may close our discussion of individual legislation by calling attention to the striking attempt to revive mediaeval principles of compulsory labor in certain avocations and in certain portions of this country. The cardinal rule that the contract of labor may not be compelled to be carried out, that an injunction will not issue to perform a labor contract, or even in ordinary cases against breaking it, is, of course, violated by any such legislation; but ingenious attempts have been made to get around it in the Southern States. This world-wide problem is really rather a racial problem than an economic one amongst Anglo-Saxons. The inability of the African and the Caucasian to live side by side on an equality largely results from this economic 'question' which, broadly stated, is that the Caucasian is willing to work beyond his immediate need voluntarily and without physical compulsion; the African in his natural state is not. The American Indian had the same prejudice against manual labor; but rather that, as a gentleman, he thought himself above it; and his character was such that he always successfully resisted any attempts at enslavement or even compulsory service. The negro, on the other hand, is not above such work, but merely is lazy and needs the impulse of actual hunger or the orders of an overseer. We are, of course, speaking of the mass of the people, in their natural state, before any enlightenment gained by contact with more civilized races. The whole question is discussed on its broadest lines by Mr. Meredith Townsend in his luminous work, "Asia and Europe." He seems hopelessly to conclude that there is no possibility of white and black permanently living together as part of one industrial civilization unless the latter race is definitely under the orders of the former. Without assenting to this view it may be admitted that it is one which has very largely prevailed in the Southern States, and the difficulty there is, of course, with agricultural labor. So fast as the negro can be made a peasant proprietor, the question seems to be in a measure solved; but it is alleged to be almost impossible to get the necessary labor from negroes when done for others, under contract or otherwise. There is, therefore, a mass of recent legislation in the Southern States which we may entitle the _peonage_ laws, which range from the highly objectionable and unconstitutional statute compelling a person to carry out his contract of labor under penalty as for a misdemeanor, to the more ingenious statutes which get at the same result by the indirect means of declaring a person guilty of breaking a contract under which he has acquired money or supplies punishable as for fraud. There are also statutes applying and very greatly extending the old common-law doctrine of loss of service; making it highly criminal for