Protective Legislation

Protective Legislation, a term applicable to legislation in promotion of Protection as opposed to Free Trade, is more specially used of legislation in favour of classes of the community thought specially to stand in need of it, the Factory Acts (q.v.) being a notable example. To the same category belong the Employer's Liability Act (see LIABILITY), the Merchant Shipping Acts, much of the legislation in regard to mines, Crofters (q.v.), and Irish tenants (see LAND LAWS). The supporters of the Laissez-faire (q.v.) theory of government, even when admitting justification for some of those measures, protest against others of them or parts of them as interfering with industry and commerce, and tending to limit freedom and establish a socialistic state-despotism. The proposal to limit the working day to eight hours is resisted on the same ground; and some extend their protest to free education, free libraries, and government measures for the housing of the poor. See A Plea for Liberty, edited by Thomas Mackay, with preface by Herbert Spencer (1891).