LESSON 11: NEW TRENDS IN LAW, 1815-1914____________________________________________________

a. XIX Century: Public law and liberal democracy_____________________________________________________

International order: Treaty of Vienna 1815
- Europe tried to settle down after the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars by the creation of a unified legal
system of balance of powers.
- There was a definition of the map of Western Europe.
- Congress of Vienna: Some sectors tried to restore hereditary and absolutist monarchy, the new political factors
and the new spread of economic power. However, XIX century liberalism was implemented:
• Extension of privileged classes to include professional and commercial men.
• It favoured constitutional monarchy and a parliament in which property, and not people, was represented.
- 1848: Liberal revolutions and the Communist manifesto is issued.
• Democracy was a more radical idea, it entailed equal civil and political rights (Universal male suffrage
and it held that the elected representative assembly should be guided by the will of the electorate).
From liberalism to democracy, slowly process.
- Second half of the XIX century:
• Influence in public law and institutions.
 Parliamentary representation and universal suffrage.
• Unification of Italy and Germany:
 Unification of legal orders.
 Creation of liberal nation states:
- Germany: 1871, Bismarck
- Italy: 1870-1, Garibaldi
- Nationalism
• Roots: XVI Century
• XIX century: New ways of understanding nationalism
 The idea of nationhood of a people. Race, language and culture
 Codification is seen as part of the process of creating national identity
- Liberal/radical democracy
• Active citizenship: all men should be equal citizens before the law
- Liberal economy
• The middle class grew to huge proportions
b. The Industrial Revolution and the organisation of business____________________________________________
The Industrial revolution
- XVIII:

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 • The Industrial Revolution altered the economic base of Europe. Before 1800, most European
manufacturing industry had been very local, which depended in small groups an unsophisticated
machinery.
- XIX:
• The revolution in industry was accompanied by a revolution in transport, as well as in communications.
Efficient means of transport: roads, and mainly, railways were created.
• Application of industrial machinery.
• Concentration of capital and industry.
- Some general consequences: Growth in population, development in medicine, hygiene, commercial and
manufacturing changes, etc.
- Consequences on the organisation of business:
• Mass production and large industrial complex – industries organised in a large scale
• New ways of financing industry were needed.
• Ny business needs steady capital investment to create wealth and succeed– this was made by purchases of
shares and ownership of firms.
 The XVIII century had seen the first bursting of many “bubbles”. There was speculation
and risk of these “bubbles”.
 Development of joint stock company with limited liability and transferable shares.
• Development of mercantile law:
o 1852: A mercantile law commission was appointed in England.

o 1855: Limited Liability Act for England was passed by the Parliament. (It limited the liability of
shareholders to the amount of their unpaid share capital).
o Later replaced by: Joint Stock Companies Act, by a more comprehensive measure.

o By the beginning of the XIX century, the concept of Société anonyme had been developed in France.

c. The regulation of employment____________________________________________________________________

 Capitalist entrepreneur
• Unskilled of semi-skilled cheap labour.
• Increase in population.
• Individualism.
• No protection of the weak – protection of the market.
• Remoteness between the employer and the worker.
• Product costs kept as low as possible.
• Employing women and children.
• Starvation waged.
- As the century passed, humanitarians began focusing on the “conditions of the labouring classes”:
• 1834: All slaves within the British Empire became free.
• 1833, England: Prohibition to work under the age of 9 and night work for all under 18.
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 o 1842: It appeared the Report on the Employment of Children in Mines which gave a shocking
picture of life underground, recording that the conditions experienced there anticipated the period
of old age, decrepitude and death.
• Similar legislation was passed in Europe during the XIX century, (Prusia, England, Austria and France)
about employment of children; the working hours (no more than 12); and insurance schemes.
d. Trade Unions_________________________________________________________________________________
- Rise of modern Trade Unions during the XIX century.
- Reasons: Terrible working conditions, plus large units of workers.
- Law was reluctant to organised labour:
• Associations were against the interest of those in power. They represented a threat to law and order, and it
raised the spectre of revolution by:
 Chartists movements in England in the 1830s and 1840s.
 United Irishmen in 1790.
- Ideological ground of the trade union movements:
• New socialist ideas against capitalism. (Karl Marx)
• Karl Marx and his followers believed the capitalist system was essentially evil because it was based on
competition:
 Proposal: elimination of private enterprise and replace it for state run industries.
 Class struggle as the method for the history evolution.
- Gradual recognition of unions in Europe:
• France: The Code Civil rejected the concept of organised labour.
 Napoleon III (1852-1870) – workers movements became strong – workers revolts.
 1864: The Code legalised strikes.