parties asked for any change; and the limitations are accepted even where the award does not bind. It is also well worthy of notice that on state wages boards and other tribunals appeal is constantly made to the standards prescribed by the Commonwealth Court and to the reasoning of this Court as appearing in its series of reports. Now it is quite true, as some workers say (according to the Metropolitan Gas Company's statement in the passage quoted), that "the arbitration Court is not an ideal tribunal." It could be made much better, more beneficial to all parties and to the public, if Parliament were to adopt the improvements which are recommended by experience. I mean to refer to some of them hereafter. But all who have experience in the control of industries will recognise the immense advantage it is to the working of the industries to have definite rules laid down by some constituted authority for guidance not only as to the basic wage, as the gas company stated, but as to other matters - always provided that the authority does not interfere with the discretion of the management rashly or stupidly.

During these last few trying years Australia has found the advantage of having set standards as to employment in industry, and of having a tribunal ready and willing to apply these standards, and of providing a means whereby employees can get justice without the cruel and self-punishing device of strike; for, though we have our troubles, we have been free from such wide-spread stoppages and disorders as have occurred in Great Britain and in America.

MINIMUM RATES

As has been explained in the previous articles, the Court fixes the minimum rate by first finding what is called the "basic wage" the reasonable living wage for an ordinary adult labourer — and then adding the "secondary wage" - the additional sum that in practice is paid to a man for the skill or other exceptional necessary qualifications of his class.

In finding the basic wage the Court uses a rough estimate which it made in an inquiry in 1907 as to "fair and reasonable remuneration"; 16 and the Court varies the 7s. per day, 42s. per week, as then estimated, in the ratio that the cost of living has increased since

16 2 Com. Arb. 1 (1907).

1907. For instance, if it now takes 30s. to purchase as much as could be purchased in 1907 for 17s. 6d., the basic wage is found by this formula:

17s. 6d. 30s. :: 75.: 125.

The latest figures for Australia as a whole seem to give 12s. 9d. per day, 76s. 6d. per week, nearly £200 per annum; but the trend of the cost of living is still upwards. Effect is given, as far as possible, to the differences in the cost of living in different localities.

The estimates of the Commonwealth statistician as to the variations in the purchasing power of money are made on scientific lines; and although often attacked on both sides by men who keep their minds fixed on the variations of some specific commodities, such as clothing, they have always stood every test. But there is no doubt that the rough estimate made by the Court in 1907 ought to be superseded or revised by a new investigation made after so many years have elapsed as to the absolute present cost of living. I had hoped- and suggested that the government would see fit to commit the investigation to the Commonwealth statistician and his staff, as they would handle the subject coldly and impartially, aided by their experience and facilities. But the government has seen fit to entrust the ascertainment of a fit basic wage to a commission consisting of some representatives of the employers and some representatives of the employees, with a distinguished lawyer as chairman. Such an inquiry, in such an atmosphere, must inevitably elicit evidence of a rambling kind on both sides, and representatives tend to become partisans. But we must hope for the best.

The basic wage is to be fixed on family lines, on the assumption that the male adult worker has to support himself, a wife, and three dependent children. This is in accordance with the assumption of the Court in 1907; and it is also in accordance with the United States Bureau of Labor and Statistics, December, 1919. Mr. Seebohm Rowntree in England, in his thoughtful study of the subject, "The Human Needs of Labour," has worked on the same lines. He says, as to the families of all classes in the city of York, that "if we were to base minimum wages on the human needs of families with less than 3 children, 80 per cent of the children of fathers receiving the bare minimum wage would for a shorter or longer period be inadequately provided for, and 72 per cent of them would be in

this condition for 5 years or more." He even recommends a scheme whereby the states should supplement the minimum in the case of larger families. The Deputy President, Powers, J. (now resigned), has made a recommendation recently to the same effect.17 But in determining the duty of the employer to his employee the Court does not compel a basic wage calculated on more than three dependent children.

It has been urged and fairly that if the workers are never to get an increase in wages unless the cost of living rise and in proportion to the increase in the cost, they never get an improvement in their real wages at all-wages as represented by the commodities purchasable therewith. Of course it is in itself a great advantage that by the system of increasing the money wages in proportion to the increase in the cost of living the standard of life is not lowered — is maintained throughout these critical years. The increase in wages made by the Court is far greater and steadier than could have been achieved by strikes. But the Court has done more. By a curious piece of good fortune, the standard of life was actually raised at the beginning, before the application of the statisticians' figures; and the raised standard — not the previous standard

has been upheld in the long series of awards. For the very first case that came before the present President was a special inquiry in which the President had to decide (for the purpose of an Excise Tariff Act) whether certain manufacturers were giving “fair and reasonable remuneration" to their employees; and he had to make up his mind what was fair and reasonable. His conclusion was that a wage of 7s. per day, 42s. per week, was the least wage that would be sufficient for wholesome living in Melbourne, and the manufacturers were not paying so much. The wage at the time for the labourer was 5s. or 6s. per day. I think that I am close to the mark when I say that even for men in regular work the average wage was not more than 5s. 6d. per day, 33s. per week. This would mean that the standard was raised by over 27 per cent in 1907; and this raised standard has been preserved in the succeeding awards, which prescribed increases proportionate to the increase in the cost of living.

The system is now, apparently, universally accepted as just and proper. It will amuse some of my readers to know that the 17 Metalliferous mining, 13 Com. Arb. 550, 559, 572 (1919).

Court was for some years the target for numerous attacks on the ground that the Court was itself the wicked cause of the increase in the cost of living. Worried housewives were diligently instructed by certain journals that the Court was to blame. They were also taught the "vicious circle" theory - the fallacy that an increase of wages is no real benefit to the worker that (for instance) an increase in the wages of a worker in motor-car bodies involves an equivalent increase in the price of his bread and meat. But since it became generally known that the cost of living has risen in other countries as well as in Australia - indeed, much higher than in Australia there seems to be silence at last on this subject of the wickedness of the Court.

SECONDARY WAGE

But the secondary wage-defined as above has to be added to the wage suitable for the unskilled labourer. The Court holds that the inducement to acquire the extra skill of the artisan must be maintained. For the purpose of ascertaining the secondary wage, the Court looks to the margin allowed for the special calling in practice before regulation; and both employers and employees willingly acquiesce in this system.

During the violent financial upheaval caused by the great war, and because of the widespread uncertainty as to what would follow, the Court has not increased the secondary wage in proportion to the increased cost of living; it has merely maintained the same absolute margin.18 True, the additional commodities to which the skilled worker is entitled have increased in price also; but they are not so absolutely essential as the commodities necessary for wholesome living. Now that the war has ended, the question arises whether this cautious and conservative course should still be followed; but as the subject is to be discussed at an early date I refrain from further comment.

MINIMUM RATES AND SCARCITY OF LABOUR

In fixing minimum rates, the Court refuses to prescribe such rates as a temporary scarcity of the class of artisans or others enables the men to secure. For instance, fully qualified coopers are

18 Merchant Service Guild, 10 Com. Arb. 214 (1915).

scarce for various reasons; and high-class breweries are willing to give coopers higher wages than the system adopted by the Court would justify as a minimum that is to say, the basic rate with the addition of the appropriate secondary wage for training and skill. This seems to be a proper case for the play of the forces of demand and supply. If the rates due to a temporary scarcity were to be prescribed as the minimum rate, there would be unrest produced among artisans of the same grade as to whom there is not such scarcity; and, when normal times return, there would be complications also in the employment even of coopers.19 As stated in the Waterside Workers' case,20 a minimum rate "means the least rate which the employer shall be allowed to pay, on pain of a penalty, whatever the state of the market for labour, or the need of the employee for work, whatever his efficiency and whatever the circumstances agreeable or disagreeable." This does not prevent the Court, however, from prescribing, or creating machinery for fixing, a lower rate for workers who are old or infirm in obedience to § 40 (1) (b) of the Act.

A similar problem arose in the case of seafaring men of various ratings. Owing to the risk from submarines, and other causes which I have already mentioned, the rates offered to these men in other countries were hugely enhanced; and the Australian seamen and firemen claimed in 1918 50 per cent increase in their minimum rates. The Court refused to depart from its systematic standard for the minimum, but suggested the offer of a bonus under the exceptional circumstances:

"It may be that the Australian shipowners may have to outbid America by the grant of bonuses or otherwise, in order to retain seafaring men settled in Australia. It is obviously no more an offence for an Australian seaman to ship from non-Australian ports in order to get the benefit of the higher wages than it is an offence for a merchant to sell his goods in the highest market.""

But the suggestion was not heeded. The government had many ships of its own, and had nearly all the interstate ships under charter. It did nothing, and allowed things to drift to the strike to which I have already referred.