reliance is being placed in an ever increasing degree on the action of the State. A low rate of wages may be in itself a reason for the absence of a trade union, as the workers cannot afford even a copper or two for contributions. The higher a man's wages, the greater his reserve for fighting for still better conditions; the lower his wages, the less opportunity he has for effective organisation. In some industries, collective bargaining is made still more difficult by the fact that the employers are scattered and ill-organised, as, for example, in clerical and agricultural occupations. Rates of wages may be influenced directly or indirectly by the public authority. This may be done indirectly by such means as " fair wages clauses," under which employers are given public contracts on condition that they pay not less than the district rate of wages. Some municipal authorities go further, and stipulate that contractors pay such wages not only to the workmen actually engaged on the public work, but to all workers in their employ. Or the State may indirectly help to maintain an established rate of wages through the Unemployment Insurance Scheme, whereby an unemployed person is not compelled to accept work offered to him (under the threat of losing benefit pay) if the rate of pay is below the standard. The State and local authorities may influence wages directly by giving standard rates to workers in their own employment, and this must influence indirectly the rates paid elsewhere. Another way in which the State may directly influence wages is by ratifying voluntary agreements; this has been done in New Zealand and Australia. Or it may decide rates by arbitration and enforce them by law, which method has also been attempted in Australia. Or it may set up wages boards to fix rates for particular trades; such is the policy adopted in this country under the Trade Boards Acts. Finally it may fix a national minimum below which, with certain exceptions, it is illegal to employ anybody. This plan has been attempted in parts of Australasia and in some American States but has not worked satisfactorily, as the rate has usually been too low to perform any useful service apart from the protection of child labour. The different methods of public regulation of wages are briefly reviewed in this section. The earliest attempt at State regulation of wages on Wages any appreciable scale was in New Zealand, where in 1894 the State was empowered to establish a court of arbitration and to enforce its awards. Compulsory arbitration was subsequently provided for in Victoria (1901), West Australia (1902), the Commonwealth (1904), South Australia and Queensland (1912). Compulsory arbitration has encountered strong opposition from the trade union movements. As this legislation, however, was designed as much with a view to securing industrial peace as to regulating wages, further consideration may be delayed until later.* Besides this method of fixing the remuneration of labour, wages boards were set up, first by Victoria in 1896, followed by South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania. These wages boards, comprising representatives of the employers, the workers and the State, were established for particular trades. Different from the courts of arbitration, their decisions were not binding on both parties, and the workers if dissatisfied were left free to press for higher rates. In recent years the wages board system has extended both geographically and in its scope; in some of the Australian States practically every trade has its wages regulated by such boards. In New South Wales, however, about half *See below, pp. 184-5. of the workers are covered by State awards in arbitration courts.* The standard generally taken by Australian legislators is that of the living wage. West Australia, for example, in 1912 required the minimum to be "sufficient to enable the average worker to whom it applies to live in reasonable comfort, having regard to any domestic obligations to which such average worker would ordinarily be subject,"† i.e. more than a subsistence wage. The New South Wales Arbitration Act (1918 Amendment) provides for the annual determination of the general minimum living wage by reference to cost of living statistics. In Tasmania and Victoria the standard formerly taken was the wage paid by "the reputable employer," but this method was found unsatisfactory and therefore abandoned. Recent attempts at Commonwealth legislation for the maintenance of children (1919) and the endowment of motherhood (1921), although not yet successful, show that increasing attention is being given to the question of a family wage. Since it is not practicable to depart from the flat rate, and enforce differential rates of payment according to the number of dependants, State subvention is proposed to permit the real income to rest on a family basis. The regulation of wages is also provided for in Canada, where, however, the legislation is concerned more with the settlement of industrial disputes. In some parts of the United States legal minimum rates have been laid down, but they apply only to women and young persons, adult male workers being so far unprovided for. The District of Columbia passed a minimum wage law in 1917, but the United States Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1923. * See article by P. H. Douglas in Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 37. † Industrial Arbitration Act, 1912, No. 57, § 84. The British Following a public outcry against sweating in this country, the first Trade Boards Act was passed in 1909. Provision was made for establishing minimum rates in the chain-making, readymade tailoring, paper-boxmaking and lace finishing trades, where conditions had been exceptionally bad. The machinery was a wages board for each trade, consisting of an equal number of representitives of employers and employed together with neutral State appointed members," who were to compose less than half of the total number. The Board was to investigate the conditions in the particular trade, and formulate minimum rates of wages, its decisions being enforceable by law. The provisions of the Act could be extended to any other trade, and in 1913 four additional trades, viz., sugar confectionery and fruit preserving, shirt-making, hollow-ware making, and linen and cotton embroidery, were brought within its scope. The workers in all these trades had been inadequately organised, and were therefore more at the mercy of unscrupulous employers than workers in most other occupations. The experiment was very successful, and in 1918 the Government decided to extend the operations of the Trade Boards to many other industries. The Act of that year made it possible for Trade Boards to be set up in the nonsweated industries, and thus marked a new departure in policy. It was framed largely with the object of providing wages machinery for all trades that did not possess effective means of collective bargaining. Within four years sixtythree Trade Boards in all had been established, catering for about three million workers. There was a certain relationship between the Act of 1918 and the policy of Joint Industrial Councils so much in vogue at the time.* It had been found that improved * See below, pp. 188-91. wages in the occupations covered by the Act of 1909 had made contributions to trade unions more possible and thus had improved the bargaining strength of the workers. One object of the Act of 1918 was avowedly to stimulate labour organisations with a view to the ultimate establishment of Industrial Councils. A further object was to provide a brake on the tendency to a too rapid fall of wages following the war. Method of The principle adopted in determining the minimum rates was not heroic. Though the new wages were as a rule considerably above the former rates, there was no real attempt to lay down a general standard of life minimum, below which no workers in these trades could be paid. The policy rather was to fix rates largely in accordance with what the industry could bear, and the minima therefore varied appreciably from trade to trade. The rates were for "ordinary" (not "average") workers, lower wages being permitted where age or other causes made a normal output impossible.* Until recently there were no differentiated rates according to districts, the wage applying equally to workers throughout the trade. Now, however, a certain amount of differentiation is possible; for example, the Scottish Aerated Waters Trade Board has fixed a lower rate than the English Board in the same trade.† In the Act of 1909 a minimum time rate was fixed as the basis, though power was given to establish a piece rate where this was practicable. In some cases the permission * To prevent employers from making unfair use of this power, some Trade Boards have insisted on a minimum proportion of ordinary workers: e.g. the Box-making Trade Board stipulates that not less than 85 per cent. shall earn the normal day rate. + Tillyard, The Worker and the State (1923), P. 55. |