all the profits to the state.  Now this is nothing but the “Iowa idea” of two years ago.  It was suggested very urgently by Governor Cummins that there should be a law providing that where a trust got complete control of a certain industry in this country its surplus profit should be forfeited either indirectly by the taking off of the tariff, or by way of a franchise tax, that is, of a United States tax upon its franchises, which could be increased in such a way as to tax it out of existence if it persisted.  The latter remedy is at the root of President Taft’s new corporation tax, but Congress has not yet applied the former, although it was very seriously advocated that there should be statutes which should indirectly forfeit the profits of the trust that had secured a monopoly; that is an engrossing trust—­covin or alliance, as our ancestors would have called it—­“a gentleman’s agreement”—­and that it should be done by a reduction of the tariff on the articles in which that trust dealt; this reduction to be ordered by the president.  When he determined that a trust had completely engrossed an industry, he might say so by proclamation; and then the act of Congress should go into effect and the duties upon that product be abolished, all the protection of the trust taken away.  There is a trouble with such legislation, in that it may be said to allow the president to make the law; and under our Constitution the president cannot make laws.  The legislative branch and the executive branch of the government must be kept distinct; and it probably would be argued by constitutional lawyers, and in this instance by either party that was not in favor of such legislation, that to reduce the duties of such a class of goods was a legislative act, and therefore any such law would be unconstitutional because the president cannot legislate.  But the point I wish to make now in both these cases is the exact correspondence of the problem; what are remedies to-day were remedies five hundred years ago.  So far we have found nothing new, either in remedy or offence.

(1349) Now there is a third great line of legislation that we must consider in connection with these other two, and that is the Statutes of Labor.  It was the custom in early times to attempt to regulate prices; both of wages and commodities.  The first Statute of Laborers dates from 1349.  Its history was economic.  They had had a great plague in England known as the Black Death; and it had carried off a vast number of people, especially the laboring people.  There was naturally great demand for workers.  Laborers were very scarce.  It is estimated that one-third of the entire population had died; and there has never been a time when wages were so high relatively, that is, when wages would buy so much for the workingman, as about the middle of the fourteenth century.  But the employers were no fonder of high wages than they are to-day.  All England was used to sumptuary laws, laws regulating the price of commodities, and