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corrupting influences and dangerous occasions, and that he be not led away to neglect his home and family or to squander his earnings." [1] The general obligation of fraternal correction will more frequently impose a duty on the master of admonishing and correcting a domestic servant than an ordinary workman of his.

(c) " Furthermore, the employer must never tax his workpeople beyond their strength or employ them in work unsuited to their age or sex." [2]

According to English common law, the contract between employer and employed involves on the part of the former the duty of taking reasonable care to provide appliances and to maintain them in a proper condition, and so to carry on his operations as not to subject those employed by him to unnecessary risk. This common law liability has been further increased and defined by the Employers' Liability Acts and Workmen's Compensation Acts, which, however, will as a rule only affect the conscience after the sentence of a competent authority, except in so far as there was grave culpable negligence on the part of the employer.

(d) The employer's " great and principal duty is to give everyone a fair wage. Doubtless before deciding whether wages are adequate, many things have to be considered; but wealthy owners and all masters of labour should be mindful of this, that to exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute for the sake of gain, and to gather one's profit out of the need of another, are condemned by all laws, human and divine. To defraud anyone of wages that are his due is a crime which cries to the avenging anger of heaven. Behold, the hire of the labourers . . . which by fraud hath been kept back by you, crieth aloud; and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. [3]

" Lastly, the rich must religiously refrain from cutting down the workmen's earnings, whether by force, by fraud, or by usurious dealing; and with all the greater reason because the labouring man is, as a rule, weak and unprotected, and because his slender means should in proportion to their scantiness be accounted sacred. Were these precepts carefully obeyed and followed out, would they not be sufficient of themselves to keep under all strife and all its causes?" [4]

Sums must not be deducted from a servant's wages on account of temporary illness, though by English law a master

  1. Leo XIII, I.e.
  2. ibid.
  3. Jas. v 4; Can. 1524.
  4. Leo XIII, I.e.