to apply all the rules of the statute on hired servants, which did not particularly derive from the historical development of the master-servant institution or from different administrative purposes. Schmidt however noted thatWinroth appeared to be uncertain and that the state of things as well as the legal doctrine during the last decades of the 19th century was “extremely unclear”.117 We can specify the two overall issues which will be discussed in part iii i) What support is to be found for Folke Schmidt’s thesis that “the most common”opinion beforeWinroth’s debut in 1878 was to classify the master-servant relationship as belonging to family law?What opinions did legislative texts and scholars ventilate about the legal character of this traditional relationship as well as about the new labour relationships? ii) How did Winroth himself in 1878 analyse the master-servant relationship and the“free”contracts of employment? How did his opinions relate to the German historical school? The political and legal debate of the 19th century took place in an era of major social and economic transformations, the effects of which upon working life and its legal regulation are still noticeable. Proletarisation, demographic growth and mass poverty rocked the old system.While the Swedish population doubled, production was static in the sense that it continued to be concentrated in the agrarian sector. Although the legal position of the poor farmers and tenant farmers had been decidedly improved during the 18th century and agriculture in general had p a r t 1 i i , c h a p t e r 3 64 3. 2 central top ics of part i i i 3. 3 the social i s sue 117 Schmidt, F 1959, p. 12-13 with reference toWinroth 1878, p. 10 andWinroth 1891, p. 32. See also Adlercreutz,A, 1954, pp. 27-28, fn 4, 151, fn 87, 88; Peterson, C1982; Peterson, C1984; Adlercreutz,T1971, pp. 96-106.
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