or a tenant-farmer paying rent under a lease. If he is a cropper, then, in case of dispute, he would be awarded what similar laborers in the locality receive as wages, regardless of the value of the crop. If he is a tenant-farmer he is awarded his share of the crop, regardless of what he might earn as wages. In order to decide the point, the courts look into the contract to discover which party has the control and direction of the farming operations and the legal possession of the crop at the end of the season. In brief, if the landlord gives orders as to cultivation, and has legal possession and the right to divide the crop and give the tenant his share, the contract is a labor contract. But if the tenant is "his own boss" and has legal possession of the crop, and gives the landlord his share, the contract is a lease. Generally it turns out that, in proportion as the tenant advances a larger and larger share of the working capital, the contract which he is able to make is a lease and gives him not only a larger share of the product, but also a chance to make a profit in addition to wages; while the smaller the proportion of capital which he advances, the less is his share and the more nearly the contract becomes a labor contract.

2

If the contract is a lease, the landlord has a preference lien on the crop for his rent. If it is a labor contract, the laborer has a laborers' lien on it for his wages.1

(2) Agricultural Labor Legislation

The foregoing distinctions indicate differences in the kind of legislation needed to protect agricultural labor compared with that protecting industrial labor. The one modifies mainly the law of landlord and tenant, the other that of employer

1 Shoemaker v. Crawford, 82 Mo. App. 487 (1900); Kelly v. Rummerfield, 117 Wis. 620 (1903); Bowman v. Bradley, 151 Pa. St. 351 (1892); Chase v. McDonnell, 24 Ill. 237 (1860); Cutting v. Čox, 19 Vt. 517 (1847). 2 Taylor v. Bradley, 39 N. Y. 129 (1868); Neal v. Brandon, 70 Ark. 79, 66 S. W. 200 (1902); Almand v. Scott, 80 Ga. 95, 4 S. E. 892 (1888).

Randall v. Ditch, 123 Ia. 582, 99 N. W. 190 (1904); Hooper v. Haines, 71 Md. 64, 18 Atl. 29, 20 Atl. 159 (1889); Keoleg v. Phelps, 80 Mich. 466, 45 N. W. 350 (1890); Wilson v. Stewart, 69 Ala. 302 (1881); Noe v. Layton, 69 Ark. 551, 64 S. W. 880 (1910).

Grisson v. Pickett, 98 N. C. 54, 3 S. E. 921 (1887).

and employee. Farming is, for the most part, a small-scale industry, and there is opportunity for individuals to rise into the position of independent owners. Beginning, perhaps, as a casual laborer, the next step is that of the farm laborer hired by the month or by the year, and living with the family of the owner. Next, with a family of his own, the steps upward are cropper, share tenant, cash tenant, owner with mortgage, and, finally, ownership unencumbered. Legislation may aid or obstruct this upward movement.

If the share tenant, whether cropper or farmer, is not permitted to acquire any title to such permanent improvements as he adds to the land, his condition is practically the same as that of the wage-earner, who has no title to his own product. Like the laborer, he tends to be kept permanently in that class. This is the condition of croppers and share tenants in the United States, and the result is seen in their frequent movement from farm to farm. Such tenants, without title to their "savings" in the form of improvements, can do but little in the way of accumulating the capital necessary to rise to the higher steps, and their instability and lack of incentive are equally serious factors in their own deterioration and in that of the soil.

This condition received legislative attention first in England. There had been a strong agitation favoring the enactment of legislative measures to compensate tenants for improvements made on the landlord's estate, but not until 1850 was a bill introduced into Parliament favoring a reasonable allowance for such improvements. The bill did not pass, but similar measures were brought before that body several times, and in 1875 an act was obtained stipulating the conditions under which an outgoing tenant was to be paid for improvements. However, no provision was made compelling landlords to contract under the law, and as a consequence the statute was ineffective.

In 1883, a new bill, known as the agricultural holdings act, was passed, compelling all landlords to make their leases with tenants subject to compensation for improvements.

Even with compensation for improvements it requires time and trials for the tenant or purchaser to find a suitable farm. Finding the tenant a farm has a direct relationship with the

finding the laborer his job. The importance of this problem is keenly felt, as is shown in an investigation made by the United States Department of Agriculture.2 In accordance with a statute enacted in 1905, New York state3 established a bureau of information regarding farms for rent and sale and positions for agricultural laborers. It was claimed that this bureau had secured work for about 15,000 men on farms during the first three and a half years of its existence.4 The bureau also issues a bulletin dealing with the farms to be disposed of throughout the state.

Legislation of various countries also provides credit agencies to enable the tenant or farmer to acquire advances of capital necessary to secure permanency in his position. The Schultze Delitsch and Raiffeisen banks in Germany and Austria, the Crédit Foncier in France, the cooperative banks in Italy and Russia, are private cooperative credit systems operating under government supervision.5 New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, and the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in Canada make loans to farmers, as do also Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, and Utah.

In New Zealand the "advances to settlers" system is administered by the New Zealand State-guaranteed Advances Office. Loans are repaid to the advances office in semiannual instalments of principal and interest. Interest is charged at the rate of 5 per cent. a year, but this rate is reduced to 41⁄2 per cent. if payments of interest and principal are promptly made."

In regulating the contract of landlord and tenant the problem of administration is similar to that of regulating the contract of employer and employee. At first the matter is left to the courts as is the case with the Alabama and Texas

'See "Public Employment Exchanges," pp. 270–278.

2 United States Bureau of Labor, Bulletin No. 94, 1912, "Supply of Farm Labor," George K. Holmes.

*New York, Laws 1905, C. 243.

'New York State Commissioner of Agriculture, Seventeenth Annual Report, 1910, p. 164.

American Commission on Agricultural Cooperation and Rural Credit in Europe, Report, Part I, 1913, pp. 24, 181, 182, 237, 438, 63d Congress, Ist Session, Senate Document No. 214.

Wisconsin State Board of Public Affairs, Bulletin on State Loans to Farmers, 1913, P. 4.

'Ibid., pp. 14 ff.

laws and the British legislation above mentioned. Afterward it is found that the tenant, like the wage-earner, is unable to avail himself of the aid of the courts. Then, an administrative body or commission is created to deal with each contract as it arises. In the case of the tenant contract, it is the highly inflated value of land that offers the chief obstacle to the laborer or cropper in advancing to the position of owner. This obstacle was attacked in Ireland, in 1881, by the creation of a land commission to fix rents. The commission reduced rents 15 to 20 per cent. Later, when the government began to make loans at low rates of interest, in order to encourage farm ownership, and then began to compel the landlords to sell to their tenants, the land commission fixed the fair value of the land. Otherwise, the government loans, at 3 per cent. interest, would have served only to inflate land values further, and the landlord would have absorbed the benefit intended for the tenant. Thus the Irish Land Commission does for landlord and tenant what a public utility commission does for corporation and consumer, or a minimum wage commission for employer and employee.1

4. THE LABORER AS COMPETITOR

From one point of view all labor legislation has as its object the protection of the laborer as a competitor. The wagebargaining power of men is weakened by the competition of women and children, hence a law restricting the hours of women and children may also be looked upon as a law to protect men in their bargaining power. The same is true in a different way of industrial education and free schools, for they tend to reduce the competition for the poorly paid jobs by increasing the efficiency and the wage-earning power of laborers who otherwise would be serious competitors. But for these classes of legislation the protection of the laborer as a competitor is not the main object. There are two classes of

1 See Irish land acts of 1881, 1885, 1903, and 1909 in the English statutes; Cant-Wall, Ireland under the Land Acts; American Commission on Agricultural! Cooperation and Rural Credit, Report, 1913, p. 865, 63d Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document No. 214.

legislation, however, of which it may be said that the main purpose has been to protect the American workman from competition of poorly paid laborers: (1) legislation on immigration, especially the laws against induced immigration and the Chinese exclusion laws; (2) legislation as to the sale of goods manufactured by convicts.

(1) Protection against Immigrants

Immigration legislation tends more and more to develop along protective lines. At first a country encourages people to come, in order to develop its resources; later means have to be found to safeguard the interests of the existing population.

There are four protective purposes which are served by immigration legislation. The first is the social protection of the community generally. It is obvious that every state will regard certain classes as objectionable; hence the prohibitions that the United States puts on the landing of prostitutes (since 1875), criminals (1875), professional beggars (1903). Polygamists (1891) and anarchists (1903) are excluded, partly on social and partly on political grounds. The exclusion of Orientals (1882), again, may be justified on the principle that they are unlikely to live successfully together with the other races in America. Since political offenders are on a different level from ordinary offenders against the law, they have always been exempt from such exclusion (1875).

A second kind of protection, that of the national health, is afforded by the laws which attempt to keep out those immigrants suffering from contagious disease (1891), especially from tuberculosis (1907).

A third type of excluded class is made up of those persons who are looked upon as constituting a danger to the taxpaying classes. Legislation designed to keep out persons likely to become a public charge (1882) aims at protecting the taxpayer from having to support such individuals. The fear that lunatics, idiots, or epileptics may also become charges on the community is chiefly accountable for the prohibition (1891) against their coming into the country. Again, the repeated efforts which have been made to introduce a literacy test may