Limitation of Hours of Labor from a principal to his agent. As was said by the Court in United States v. Martin, 94 U. S. 400, 1876—"We regard the statute chiefly as in the nature of a direction from a principal to his agent, that eight hours shall be deemed to be a proper length of time for a day's work, and that his contracts shall be based upon that theory. It is a matter between the principal and his agent in which a third party has no interest." In Atkins v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207, 1903, the Court said that "It is within the power of a state, as a guardian or trustee for its people and having full control of its affairs, to prescribe the conditions upon which it will permit public work to be done on behalf of its municipalities." A typical statute of this kind is that considered in the case of In re Dalton, 61 Kan. 257, 1899, which provided that eight hours shall constitute a day's work for laborers, workmen and mechanics employed by or on behalf of the state, or by or on behalf or any county, city, township or other municipality of the state. The theory of these cases is that no employee is entitled as of absolute right and as part of his liberty to per form labor for the state, and that no contractor of public work can excuse a violation of his agreement with the state by doing that which the statute under which he proceeds distinctly for bids. In the case last cited it is said: "The position which the state has taken in no wise differs from that of the individual who, in the employment of labor, refuses to allow any one to work more than eight hours. It certainly is lawful for one to refuse to employ men to work more than a given number of hours." The tendency of the decisions un doubtedly is in favor of upholding this class of statutes. Thus in In re
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Broad, 36 Wash. 449, 1904, the Court expressly overrules a former decision which was against the constitutionality of such a statute. The case overruled was City of Seattle v. Stnythe, 22 Wash. 327, 1900. But the decisions upon this class of cases are by no means unanimous. The cases which hold the contrary repudiate the agency idea and hold that while cities and counties are auxiliaries of the state for the purpose of local gov ernment, they are so far independent of the state that it is not within the power of the legislature to prescribe the terms and provisions of the contracts that may be made by a person con tracting therefor. Ex parte Kubach, 85 Cal. 274, 1890. City of Cleveland v. Construction Co., 67 O. S. 197, 1902. In the latter case the Court said, "The fallacy of the contention (that it is a direction from the principal to his agent) lies in the assumption that the compulsory authority of the legisla ture over municipal corporations is so absolute and arbitrary that it may dic tate the specific terms upon which it may contract although such contracts may relate only to matters of purely local improvements." It would seem from these cases that the real conflict between the courts is not so much on the principal-and-agency idea as it is on the question whether the law is so broad as to cover not only contracts which a municipality makes in its governmental capacity, but also those which it makes in its private capacity. In the former case the municipality acts as agent, in the latter as principal. Ap plying the principal and agency test, then, it follows that while the legisla ture has the right to prescribe the rules which shall govern in the exercise of purely governmental functions of public corporations, it has no such right
