Erskine May notes that these workers were thereafter treated "a distinct class, not entitled to the same liberties as their fellow-subjects".

[3] The 1775 act noted that the Scottish coal workers existed in "a state of slavery or bondage"[4] and sought to address this.

The main focus of the legislation was to remove the condition of servitude on new entrants to these industries, thus opening them to greater expansion.

Although the act noted "the reproach of allowing such a State of Servitude to exist in a Free Country", it sought not to do "any injury to the present Masters", so created only gradual conditions whereby those already in servitude in the mines could seek to be liberated from it after a period of seven or ten years depending on age.

3. c. 56), to liberate the remaining mine workers from the conditions created by the 1606 act,[6] while also extending provisions against organised labour.