Sec. 3. #Limitation of the wage contract#.  In general the law does not attempt to interfere with the making, by individuals, of such contracts as they choose to make.  Its main function is to interpret and enforce the contracts that are made.  But there has been an increasing group of exceptions to this general statement.  It was forbidden even by the English common law for wage-workers under some conditions to sign away their right to claim damages in case of accident, and many recent statutes have added more specific limitations in this respect.[2] Legislatures and courts have been particularly watchful of the interests of children, who are usually deemed incapable of entering into contracts binding them to their injury.  Sailors, likewise, have been somewhat exceptionally treated, because, journeying far from home, they are under the often despotic control of their employers.  The English courts may even change the contract if the sailors have been coerced by their masters.

Laws regulate the form, time, and methods of payment in manufactures and mining.  Companies sometimes keep stores and pay the workers in mines and factories in goods instead of money.  Such a store in the hands of a philanthropic employer might easily be made, without expense to himself, a great boon to his workmen, giving them the benefits of consumers’ cooeperation.  But the usual result is told by the fact that such stores are often known as “truck stores” and “pluck-me stores,” and heartily disliked by the wage-workers.  They are most often found where some one large corporation dominates in the community, as in a mining district, and the workers are in a very dependent condition.  If the higher prices demanded practically lower real wages, it would seem that the worker had an immediate remedy in his power to demand higher money-wages.  Recognizing that this is for the most part an illusion—­for it is just in such places that the conditions for free competition are least present—­the law in many states prohibits these stores.  It regulates also the measuring of work, fixing the size of screens and of cars used in coal-mining.  The law is especially favorable to the hand-laborer in regard to the collection of his wages, requiring monthly or fortnightly or sometimes weekly payments.  Mechanics’ liens give to workmen in the building trades the first claim upon the products of their labor.

Sec. 4. #Usury laws#.  The limitation by law of the rate of interest that may be charged affects many persons outside the ranks of wage-workers.  Usury laws are found almost universally in civilized lands.  By usury was formerly meant any payment for the loan of goods or money; now it means only excessive payments.  In former times moralists and lawmakers were opposed to all usury or interest.  The reason for this attitude is not hard to find.[3] Most loans were made in times of distress.  The sources of loanable capital and the chances of profitable investment were