They are compelled, as in the old English statute, to serve under contract or for a period of time, and if they break it, are made liable by this statute to some fine or penalty imposed by the nearest justice of the peace; and when they cannot pay this, they may be Imprisoned. Finally, this Statute of Laborers first states the principle that the old "wage and no more" shall be given, thus establishing the notion that there was a legal wage, which lasted in England for centuries and gave rise to the later law under which strikes were held unlawful. Here, they meant such wages as prevailed before the Black Death. (1350) The next year the statute is made more elaborate, and specifies, for common laborers, one penny a day; for mowers, carpenters, masons, tilers, and thatchers, three pence, and so on. It is curious that the relative scale is much the same as to-day: masons a little more than tilers, tilers a little more than carpenters; though unskilled labor was paid less in proportion. The same statute attempts to protect the laborer by providing that victuals shall be sold only at reasonable prices, which were apparently fixed by the mayor. Here, therefore, we have the much-discussed Standard Wage fixed by law, but in the interest of the employer; not a "living wage" fixed in the interest of the employee, as modern thought requires. The same statute makes it unlawful to give to able-bodied beggars, which is of a piece with the compulsory labor of the able-bodied. Now this first Statute of Laborers, which led to centuries of English law unjust to the laborers, it is interesting to note, was possibly never a valid law, for it was never agreed to by the House of Commons. However that may be, the confirming statute of 1364 was duly enacted by Parliament, and this was not in terms repealed until the year 1869, although labor leaders claim it to have been repealed by general words in the 5th Elizabeth. Thorold Rogers tells us that those, after all, were the happy days of the laborer--when masons got four pence a day, and the Black Prince, the head of the army, only got twenty shillings--sixty times as much. This is a fair modern proportion, however, for military and other state service; though we pay the president a salary of nearly double that proportion to the yearly pay of a carpenter. But then, these English statutes applied mainly to agricultural labor; and domestic labor was paid considerably less.