The question whether violation of Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the challenged statute constitutes a criminal offense was raised in S. v. Bishop, post, 371, and affirmatively answered. To this we refer.
*359In so far as tbe same question is raised in this ease, it may be, on the same reasoning similarly answered.
We note that appellants’ brief abandons assignments of error No. 1, (E. pp. 4 & 30) and No. 2 (E. pp. 14 & 30) relating to the sufficiency of the warrant to state the charge and the sufficiency of the evidence to convict, if the statute is declaratory of a criminal offense, except' that they insist on the motion to quash the warrant and arrest the judgment for that cause. We have referred to the contention supra. The defense stresses the contention that Chapter 328 is in contravention of both the State and Federal Constitutions, and, therefore, void.
While the basic laws under which the validity of the challenged legislation must be determined are elementary, they are, nevertheless, so fundamental as to bear summarization at this point. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved for the States respectively or to the people.” Within this reservation of powers to the individual states, is what has been judicially termed “the police power.”1 Chapter 328 of the General Session Laws of 1947 was enacted in attempted exercise of that power. The. authority of the Legislature to pass this statute, or any other measure it may deem necessary in the public welfare, is unlimited except where prohibited by the Federal or State Constitution or in conflict with Federal law enacted pursuant to constitutionally granted authority. The enactment in question has been challenged as prohibited by the Fourteenth .Amendment to the Federal Constitution and Article I, Section 17, of the State Constitution.
Neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor Article I, Section 17, contains any unqualified prohibition. Both operate to prevent the Legislature from depriving anyone of individual' or property rights except by due process of law. Due process is, of necessity, an elastic term which through the years has been expanded to cope with the varying problems of our increasingly complex society.
The flexible restraints which the Fourteenth Amendment has placed upon the use of its police power by a state are carefully set forth by Mr. Justice Roberts in Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S., 502, at pages 523 and 525:
“Under our form of government the use of property and the making of contracts are normally matters of private and not of public concern. The general rule is that both shall be free of gov*360ernmental interference. But neither property rights or contract rights are absolute; for government cannot exist if the citizen may at will use his property to the detriment of his fellows, or exercise his freedom of contract to work them harm. Equally fundamental with the private right is that of the public to regulate it in the common interest.
“The Fifth Amendment, in the field of Federal activity, and the Fourteenth as respects state action, do not prohibit governmental regulation for the public welfare. They merely condition the exertion of the admitted power, by securing that the end shall be accomplished by methods consistent with due process. And the guarantee of due process, as has often been held, demands only that the law shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious, and that the means selected shall have a real and substantial relation to the object sought to be attained.”
The elasticity of these restrictions upon the use of the police power is the life-giving elasticity of the Constitution itself so vital to our economic, social and political growth. Perhaps more than that of any other social force, the progress of labor toward its rightful place in our society would have been retarded if all statutes enacted in the exercise of the police power had been measured on the Procrustean bed of judicial precedent.2 The dictates of the Fourteenth Amendment, that “the means selected shall have a real and substantial relation to the object sought to be obtained,” must be viewed in the light of contemporary conditions under which the Legislature has seen fit to enact the statute in question. However, it is obvious that a clear understanding of those conditions is impossible without some resort to the historical development of the governmentally imposed rules for the struggle between the employer and the employed.3
*361Until recently, the struggle between management and labor has been demonstrably one-sided with Anglo-American law favoring the side possessing “the heaviest artillery.” Since the first attempts within this country to define the legal weapons and areas of combat were based upon English precedent, a brief look in that direction may be helpful.
In England, any combination of laborers to raise wages or shorten hours was a crime until 1824.4 Until 1871, it was also a crime to threaten a strike or even to persuade an employee to leave his work;5 in 1875, Parliament enacted legislation providing that workmen would not be subject to indictment for criminal conspiracy in effecting collectively that which was lawful for one workman to do;6 while the closed shop was recognized as legal in 1898 by the House of Lords, acting as England’s highest court,7 that body was unwilling to declare the boycott a legal weapon of labor although it had previously held it to be a permissible economic weapon when used by a combination of shipping firms;8 the boycott and peaceful picketing were legalized in 1906 by the Trade Disputes Act;9 following the general strikes of 1926, Great Britain pro-\ hibited local and public authorities to enter closed shop agreements;10 that restriction was lifted in 1946.11
Meanwhile, in this country early-labor cases followed the English courts’ interpretation of the common law. The Philadelphia Cord- *362 wainers case is generally regarded as the first labor case in America; in 1806 a combination of journeymen shoemakers to effect a higher pay schedule was held illegal under the common law doctrine of criminal conspiracy.12 This typified the early treatment of such matters. The courts made the initial inroads in the common law rules governing the employer-employee relationship, but the multiplicity of forums made for a variety of laws among the several states. The right of workingmen to form unions and strike for legitimate ends was recognized in 1842,13 hut the judicial views on what constituted legitimate ends differed greatly.14 Many states held the closed shop illegal even in the absence of prohibitive statutes; while many others regarded it as justifiable and legal.15 It is not here necessary to multiply illustrations or attempt to catalogue judicial pronouncements on labor matters. It is, however, significant to note that Justice Brandéis in discussing this heterogeneous growth of labor relations law in his dissenting opinion in Truax v. Corrigan,16 first spoke of “. . . the absence of legislation, to determine what the public welfare demanded . . .” and then stated “Judges, being thus called upon to exercise a guasi-legislative function and weigh relative social values, naturally differed in their conclusions on such questions.”
Ultimately, state legislatures did attempt “to determine what the public welfare demanded” by enacting laws defining the area of permissible conflict open to industrial combatants. Their general authority to do so has been firmly established.17 In the realm of labor contracts, *363tbe Supreme Court of the United States has sustained, as valid exercise of state police power, legislation providing for maximum hours,18 workmen’s compensation,19 forbidding payment of seamen’s wages in advance,20 prohibiting intimidation of employees,21 and prohibiting racial discrimination.22 In commenting on the latter decision, Professor E.. Merrick Dodd stated, “Whatever might have been thought to be the law in the days when liberty of contract was treated by the Supreme Court as an almost absolute constitutional privilege, the decision in the Oorsi case was to be expected. It is. a natural, consequence both of the increase in the economic power of unions and of the Supreme Court’s increasing-recognition, in recent years, that to refuse to treat the economic power of particular private groups as a constitutional justification for their regulation is in effect to substitute private government for government of, by and for the people. Now, that employers have lost what were formerly regarded as their constitutional rights of discriminating against union members and of paying less than legislatively-determined minimum wages, now that statutory bargaining rights granted to unions have been found to create implied duties not to discriminate against racial or religious groups, a union’s claim that anti-discrimination laws infringe its constitutional liberties is a palpable anachronism. Moreover, what is true of labor unions, economic institutions which even when they have no closed shop agreements, tend to obtain a large measure of job Control, is presumably true a fortiori of employers, who are the creators of jobs.”23
The most comprehensive gains .made by labor have unquestionably been made in the field of Federal legislation. It is neither possible nor necessary for us to do more than highlight those gains in this opinion. The Clayton Act in 1914 restricted the use of the injunction in labor disputes in an effort to correct an almost universally recognized abuse, of that judicial process.24 This marked the first major step taken by Congress in enacting rules beneficial to labor in its conflict with management. However, it fell far short of its purpose and the Norris-LaG-uardia Act in 1932 further and more specifically restricted the use of the injunction in addition to prohibiting “yellow dog contracts” and limiting the liability of union officials.25 In 1935 Congress -enacted the National *364Labor Relations Act26 declaring tbe public policy of the United States to be the encouragement of collective bargaining and the protection of “the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.” To safeguard those rights the Act prohibited five specified types of unfair employer practices. It further provided for the settlement of questions as to who are to represent employees, and it specifically preserved the right to strike. Among other provisions of the Act was the authorization of closed shop agreements with the specific limitation that nothing contained in the Act would permit such agreements in states under whose laws they were illegal.
Perhaps it might be said with the passage of The National Labor Relations Act, “the labor movement has come full circle.”27 Perhaps that statute only marked a temporary high point in the progress of labor which will some day be surpassed. We cannot know now, and our feelings in the matter have no bearings upon the case at hand. What is more important to a consideration of this case is that Congress contemporaneously with the adoption of Chapter 328, by the North Carolina General Assembly, determined that it had gone too far in licensing weapons which labor might use in obtaining its ends and that further restrictions' thereon were necessary in the public interest. The Taft-Hartley Act28 was primarily adopted for that purpose. The purpose and provisions of that statute, therefore, become highly important to a consideration of the contemporary conditions out of which Chapter -328 also emerged.
Section 1 of the National Labor Relations Act has found, as a basis for that statute, that the national welfare had been adversely affected by several stated malpractices of management in its dealings with labor. Section 1, of the Taft-Hartley Act restated those findings on the basis of evidence considered by Congress, finding that both labor and management were guilty of acts in their relationship to each other which necessitated mutual regulation in the public interest.29 The industrial strife and disruption of the national economy which led to this finding of dual responsibility and blame are briefly summarized in the reports which *365accompanied tbe Senate and House Bills and tbe conference committee’s report at tbe adoption of tbe Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.
Section 7 of tbe Taft-Hartley Act prohibits tbe narrowly defined closed sbop, and Section 8 (3) permits a union sbop subject to certain conditions. Section 14 (b) supplements these sections by providing:
“ ‘(b) Nothing in that Act shall be construed as authorizing tbe execution or application of agreements requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment in any State or Territory in which such execution or application is prohibited by State or Territorial Law.’”30
*366The committee on Education and Labor explained this provision to the House as follows: “. . . by section 13 the United States expressly declares the subject of compulsory unionism one that the States may regulate concurrently with the United States, notwithstanding that the agreements affect commerce, and notwithstanding that the State laws limit compulsory unionism more drastically than does Federal law.”31
The report of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public 'Welfare32 discusses the Committee’s findings and the evidence adduced by it which led to the enactment of the provisions referred to above. Those findings are so pertinent to the reasonableness and relevancy of the North Carolina “Right to Work Statute” that it behooves us to quote at length from the report.
“A controversial issue to which the committee has devoted the most mature deliberation has been the problem posed by compulsory . union membership. It should be noted that when the railway workers were given the protection of the Railway Labor Act, Congress thought that the provisions which prevented discrimination against union membership and provided for the certification of bargaining representatives obviated the justification for closed-shop or union shop arrangements. That statute specifically forbids any kind of compulsory unionism.
“The argument has often been advanced that Congress is inconsistent in not applying this same principle to the National Labor Relations Act. Under that statute a proviso to section 8 (3) permits voluntary agreements for compulsory union membership provided they are made with an unassisted labor organization representing a majority of the employees at the time the contract is made. When the committees of the Congress in 1935 reported the bill which became the present National Labor Relations Act, they made clear that the proviso in section 8 (3) was not intended to override State laws regulating the closed shop. The Senate committee stated that ‘the bill does nothing to facilitate closed-shop agreements or to make them legal in any State where they may be illegal’ (S. Repr. No. 573, 74th Cong., 1st sess., p. 11; see also H. Rept. No. 1147, 74th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 19-20). Until the beginning of the war only a relatively small minority of employees (less than 20 per cent) were affected by contracts containing any compulsory features. According to the Secretary of Labor, however, within the last 5 years over 75 per cent now contain some form of compulsion. But with this trend, abuses of compulsory membership have become so numerous there has been great public feeling against such arrangements. *367This bas been reflected by the fact, that in 12 States such agreements have been made illegal either by legislative act or constitutional amendment, and in 14 other States proposals for abolishing such contracts are now pending. Although these regulatory measures have not received authoritative interpretation by the Supreme Court (see A. F. of L. v. Watson, 327 U. S., 582), it is obvious that they pose important questions of accommodating Federal and State legislation touching labor relations in industries affecting commerce (Mill v. Florida, 325 U. S., 538; see also, Bethlehem Steel Co. v. N. Y. Labor Board, decided by the Supreme Court April 7, 1947). In testifying before this committee, however, leaders of organized labor have stressed the fact that in the absence of such provisions many employees sharing the benefits of what unions are able to accomplish by collective bargaining will refuse to pay their share of the cost.
“The committee has taken into consideration these arguments.in reaching what it considers a solution of the problem which. does justice to both points of view- We have felt that on the record before us the abuses of the system have become too serious and numerous to justify permitting present law to remain unchanged. It is clear that the closed shop which requires pre-existing union membership as a condition of obtaining employment creates .too great a barrier to free employment to be longer tolerated.”
At this wilting 15 states have been called to our attention in which laws have been adopted prohibiting closed shops, either by constitutional amendment or by legislative act.33 The provisions of this legislation are comparable or substantially similar to Chapter 328.34 Great weight must be attached to the fact that so many separate jurisdictions have, within a short space of time, seen fit to exercise their police power, in the same manner and for the same purposes. The composite will of such a broad cross section of our country cannot be lightly discarded as unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious or lacking in substantial relationship to its objective. “Since government is not an exact science, prevailing public opinion concerning the evils and the remedy is among the important facts deserving consideration; particularly, when the public conviction is both deep-seated and widespread and has been reached after deliberation.”35
*368The appellants contend that Chapter 328, together with Chapter 75 of the General Statutes, constitutes class legislation and is discriminating so as to deny them equal protection as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and Article I, Sec. 17, of the State Constitution. The nature of the employer-employee relationship has itself long been recognized as constitutional justification for legislation applicable only to persons in that relative status.36 The only question raised by the plea of discrimination is whether the statute applies alike to all employers and to all employees within its scope who may be found situated in like circumstances and conditions.37
Any legislation in exercise of the police power must perforce affect in different degrees persons or groups within its orbit who occupy different economic, social or political positions with reference to the ends sought by the legislation. Thus Chapter 328 may enable a non-union workman to obtain a “free ride” by receiving benefits attained through the expense and efforts of union workmen, but neither this nor other illustrations which might be given of the variable incidences of the statute upon persons differently circumstanced can render the Act discriminatory. Chapter 328 is geographically coextensive with the State Of North Carolina and its provisions are applicable with the same force 'to all employers within those boundaries just as they are applicable to 'all employees therein. It is difficult to see how, within the scope of its authority, the statute could be more uniform in its application.
We can see no merit in the appellants’ proposition that Chapter 328 violates the Fourteenth Amendment by abridging the rights of free speech and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment. That argument has been used successfully against a certain type of legislation restricting union activity. The Supreme Court of the United States in Thornhill v. Alabama,, supra, held that a state statute prohibiting peace'ful picketing was void as infringing upon the natural rights secured by the First Amendment. A like result was reached in Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S., 516, with respect to a state statute requiring procurement of an organization card as a prerequisite to the solicitation of workmen to join a union. However, Chapter 328 bears no resemblance to that type of statute. On the contrary, it seems to us that Chapter 328 may serve to secure the rights of free speech and assembly to all persons concerned. The statute protects the rights of workmen to organize; it further protects rights of workmen to express their individual opinions by refusing to join unions. The right of either side, or any faction of any side, to a *369labor controversy to assemble and publicize its own ideas remains inviolate.
Tbe essence of tbe courts’ decision in Thornhill v. Alabama, is contained in tbe following statements of Mr. Justice Murphy at pages 102 and 103 of tbe opinion: “In tbe circumstances of our times tbe dissemination of information concerning tbe facts of a labor dispute must be regarded as witbin tbat area of free discussion tbat is guaranteed by tbe Constitution. . . . Free discussion concerning tbe conditions in industry and tbe causes of labor disputes appears to us indispensable to tbe effective and intelligent use of tbe processes of popular government to shape tbe destiny of modern society.” Mr. Justice Rutledge, speaking for tbe Court in Thomas v. Collins, stated at page 532, “Tbe right to discuss, and inform people concerning, tbe advantaged and disadvantages of unions and joining them is protected not only as a part of free speech, but as a part of free assembly.” Eegardless of bow salutary tbe net result of a closed shop agreement may be, it seems patent to us tbat tbe freedom of discussion and dissemination of ideas by all concerned in labor disputes are more restricted by such agreements than by a statute which stresses individual initiative and liberties by prohibiting tbe use of union membership or tbe absence thereof as a condition of employment.
Tbe General Assembly of North Carolina has attempted to draw upon tbe residual powers of tbe State in an effort to remedy a situation of economic instability which has alarmed thinking people throughout tbe country. Those efforts have culminated in a prohibition upon tbe use of union membership or tbe absence of union membership as a condition of employment or continued employment. Substantially tbe same result has been reached in many other state forums which have considered tbe problem and also to a limited degree by tbe Congress of tbe United States.38 In one of those States, Florida, tbe people adopted a Constitutional Amendment having tbe same purpose and effect as Chapter 328. A three judge Federal District Court held tbe amendment valid exercise of State police power.39
*370State laws similar to Section 4 which outlaw “yellow dog contracts” were first ruled unconstitutional40 but are now regarded as valid.41 The appellants have not questioned the constitutionality of Section 4. They contend, on the contrary, that such a provision outlawing contracts requiring abstinence from union membership should be held constitutional and that a contrary result should be reached respecting the corollary provisions of Sections 2, 3 and 5 prohibiting union membership from being made a requisite of employment. Wo cannot accept this view. In either instance, the state is merely delineating the area within which two factions with largely conflicting aims may wage their disputes without transgressing the public welfare. If the State may say to the employer, “you cannot deny work to anyone because of his membership in a union,” we think it follows, a fortiori, that the state may say to the parties, “you cannot deny work to anyone because he is not a member of a union.”42
¥e are not called upon here to determine the wisdom of the Legislature’s action in adopting Chapter 328. Our sole concern must be whether the Legislature has acted within the limitations imposed upon it by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and Article I, Section 17, of the State Constitution.43 In determining.that question we believe that Article I, Section 17, should be viewed in the same light Justice Holmes regarded .the Fourteenth Amendment: “There is nothing I more deprecate than the use of the Fourteenth Amendment beyond the absolute compulsion of its words to prevent the making of social experiments that an important part of the community desires in the insulated chambers afforded by the several States, even though the experiments may seem futile or even noxious to me and those whose judgment I respect.”
*371While, perhaps, we do not share the resentment expressed by the great Jurist, we may point out that the Congress seems to have made clear its intention to recognize as valid the particular experiment inaugurated by Chapter 328.
In summary, the case, stripped to decisional factors, falls into simple lines. The power of the State by general legislative act, in the exercise of its police power, to condemn private contracts found to be injurious to the public welfare, to declare them contrary to public policy and prevent their consummation cannot be denied. Exercised within constitutional limitations, it is both a necessary and a salutary function of government, the exercise of which is not infrequently an exigent duty. Within those limitations the occasion justifying the exercise of the power is within the legislative discretion, provided only that its action is not arbitrary or capricious and has a reasonable relation to the end sought to be accomplished.
The rights of property guaranteed by our Constitution are necessarily relative to those held by others under the same Constitutional sanctions. The right of contract, whether considered as natural or merely civil, is a property right; certainly of no greater dignity than the right to work, ordinarily regarded as inalienable; and it cannot be unrestrictedly used to the injury of another. Under such circumstances the exercise of the State’s police power in its regulation is not a violation of Due Process required by the Fourteenth Amendment. We cannot find that the Legislature exceeded its powers. The General Assembly felt that it could no longer avoid the issue of the closed shop; and probably felt that so far as it concerned the principle which it felt should be preserved there is no substantial difference between the “closed shop” and the so-called “all union shop.” We cannot say that the matter was not a proper subject of governmental regulation or that government has become so ensnarled in its own charter as to be forced to admit its impotency.
Being of that opinion we further conclude that the record does not disclose error which would justify us in disturbing the result of the trial. We find .
No error.