TRUCK SYSTEM. TRUCK ACT. Truck, which means exchange or barter, has come to bo appropriated to signify the payment of wages of labour in goods, and not in money. By the truck system is meant this mode of paying together with the mass of its tendencies and results. The Truck Act, I & 2 Win. IV., cc. 36, 37, is au act passed in 1S31, which, repealing all the previous acts passed for the same purpose. provided anew and more stringently for the prevention of payment of wages in truck in the departments of industry therein enumerated. The wages of agricultural labourers and domestic servants are exempted frem the operation of the act.
It in to be observed, in the outset, that the chief part of the evil of what is called the truck system is incidental, and not essential to the payment of wages in truck, and arises out of the power of the master over the workman, which enables the former to use this inodo of paying wages to defraud and oppress the latter. A master may pay the wages of his workmen wholly or in part in truck, in articles of food, clothing, &e., either by agreement or with the understood con sent of hie workmen ; and if he supply these articles at prices no higher than those at which they are to be procured elsewhere, and study to meet the various wants of the workmen and their families, the utmost hann that can result is the loss to the workmen of the moral and economical lessons which the disbursement by themselves of weekly money-wages is fitted to supply, and the interference with the business and profits of neighbouring retail shopkeepers; • and there will always in such cases be some advantage to set against these, so far as they go, evil results. Where the truck system acts beneficially, it is owing entirely to the justice and benevolence of the individual truck masters. On the character of the master everything depends. In the hands of masters of opposite character, and under circumstances, whether of scarcity of employment, of isolated situation, or of combi nation among masters in the same business, or through an extensive district, which place the workman mom or lees at the mercy of his employer, the payment of wages in truck may be, and continually has been, and is still, extensively used for the defrauding and oppressing of workmen.
The following is a summary of the Truck Act, often known as Mr. Littleton's Act, which was passed in 1831. It declares all contracts for hiring of the artificers afterwards enumerated, by which wages'ire made payable wholly or in part otherwise than in the current coin of the realm, or which contain regulations an to the expenditure of wages, to be illegal, null, and void. All payment of wages is to be in money entire ; and any payment of wages in goods is declared illegal. which have been paid otherwise than in the current coin of the realm are made recoverable ; and in an action brought for the recovery of wages, no set-off is to be allowed for goods given in payment of wages, or for goods sold at any shop in which the employer has an interest. Employers are denied an action in return against artificers for goods which have been supplied in payment of wages. if workmen or their wives or children become chargeable to the parish, overseers may recover from their employers wages which have been earned within three months previous, and have not been paid in money. The penalty on employers making the illegal contracts or illegal payments of wages to be, for the first offence, a sum not greater than 101. not less than (.1.; for the second, a sum not greater that 201. nor less than 101.; and the third offence is declared a misdemeanor, and the employer who has been convicted to be punishable by fine within the discretion of the convicting magistrates, but not in a sum greater than 1001. The con victing justices are empowered to award a portion of the penalty, which shall never exceed 201., to the informer. Tho penalties may be sued for and recovered by any one before two justices of the peace having jurisdiction in the county, riding, city, or place within which the offence has been committed. No justice of the peace being engaged in any of the trades or manufactures enumerated in the act, or the father, son, or brother of such person, shall act as a justice of the peace under this act; and provision is made for county magistrates taking the place of borough magistrates thus disqualified. Justices are empowered to
compel attendance of witnesses. Power is given to levy the penalties by distress. A member of a partnership is not liable personally for the offence of his partner, but distress may be made on the partnership property. The 19th clause thus enumerates the artificers to whom the act relates :—"Artificers employed in or about the making, casting., converting, or manufacturing of iron or steel, or any parts, branches, or processes thereof; or in or about the working or getting of stone, salt, or clay ; or in or about the making or preparing of salt, bricks, tiles, or quarries ; or in or about the making or manufacturing of any kinds of nails, chains, rivets, anvils, vices, spades, shovels, screws, keys, leeks, bolts, hinges, or any other articles or hardwares made of iron or steel, or of iron and steel combined, or of any plated articles of cutlery, or of any goods or wares made of brass, tin, lead, pewter, or other metal; or of any japanned goods or wares whatsoever; or in or about the making, spinning, throwing, twisting, doubling, winding, weaving, combing, knitting, bleaching, dyeing, printing, or otherwise preparing of any woollen, worsted, yarn, stuff, jersey, linen, fustian, cloth, serge, cotton, leather, fur, hemp, flax, mohair, or silk manufactures; or in or about any manufactures whatsoever made of the said last-mentioned. materials, whether the same be or be not mixed one with another, or in or about the making or otherwise preparing, ornamenting, or finish ing of any glass, porcelain, china, or earthenware whatsoever ; or any parts, branches, or processes thereof; or any materials used in any of such last-mentioned trades or employments; or in or about the making or preparing of bone, thread, silk, or cotton lace, or of lace made of any mixed materials." Domostio servants and eel-rants in husbandry are exempted from the act. Tho 23rd clause declares that nothing in the act shall pievent the supplying to artificers of medicine or medical attendance; or fuel, materials, tools, or implements to be used in his trade or occupation, if a miner ; or of hay, corn, or other provender to be consumed by any horse or beast of burden, or the letting to any artificer the whole or part of any tenement, or the supplying of victuals dressed under the roof of any employer and there consumed ; and making deduction of wages on any of tho above accounts, or on account of money advanced, "provided always that such stoppage or deduction shall not exceed the real and true value of such fuel, materials, tools, implements, hay, corn, and proveuder, and shall not be in any case made from the wages of such artificer unless the agreement or contract for such stoppage or deduction shall be in writing and signed by such artificer." The interpretation clause (25th) gives a most extensive meaning to the word contract : " Any agreement, understanding, device, contrivance, conclusion, or arrangement whatsoever on the subject of wages, whether written or oral, whether direct or indirect, to which the employer and artificer are parties or are assenting, or by which they are mutually bound to each other, or whereby either of them shall have endeavoured to impose an obligation on the other." Such are the provisions of the Truck Act. Well adapted, as it would appear, for the purpose of protecting the workman against this species of oppression by his monster, it is yet extensively violated and evaded.
TRUE. (Astronomy.) This word is used in a somewhat technical sense. The place which a star or planet appears to occupy in the heavens is not called its tnio place, hut that which it would occupy if the effects of refraction, parallax, &c., were removed, that is, if the spectator saw from the centre of the earth, and without the light passing through any refracting medium.