c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 135 sky in the1890s.However,while during the main part of the 19th century the practical problem of concern had been primarily of an academic character and an exception, it now shifted to be the chief rule and, as such, one of the chief problems of the Swedish legislature. During the first three decades of the 20th century, the Swedish private law professors with few exceptions paid only a marginal interest to one of the hottest political problems: the worker issue.272 Their analyses of labour relationships in general followed the path of 19th century scholarship which had elaborated contractual principles, distinguished by a clearly individualistic approach and extensive systems of concepts as well as a strained distinction between private law and public law.This approach turned out to be extremely poorly suited for analysing and solving the problems of 20th century working life as it appeared in reality. Instead, the most important arguments are found in an extensive discussion about a great number of stranded legislative projects from1900 right up to that time the Swedish parliament after a bitter debate one night in May1928finally passed the acts on the binding force of collective agreements and the establishment of a labour court. As has been mentioned in part II, the master-servant rules had been debated in parliament since the late 1700s. After the limitation in 1858 of the masters’ right to chastise their workers, the criticism of the statute weakened for a few decades, partly due to the fact that the farmers strengthened their position in parliament. The situation changed radically when the “worker issue” blazed up in the1890s, and the issue of revising the Master-Servant Statute of 1833 was closely related to the ambitions to establish comprehensive labour law legislation. Several bills by private members of parliament at the sessions of 1896and1898demanded a new regulation, with the aim of promoting a freer relationship between 272 Göransson 1988, pp. 169-170.
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