AUSTRALIAN WAGE PROPOSALS. 451 



ontiro wealth of the country would not be adequate, if divided 

 amongst employees alone, to yield the necessary amount. It 

 was also pomted out that the payment of such an increased 

 wage would necessarily result in a further increase in prices, a 

 further rise in the cost of living, and a still further necessary 

 increase in the minimum wage. The Prime Minister, therefore, 

 sent for the Chairman of the Commission to discuss the question 

 with him, and the Chairman as a result of this conversation 

 presented a memorandum for which he alone was responsible, 

 there not being time to consult his colleagues. In the course of 

 this memorandum he pointed out that, if all employees received 

 a sum necessary to support a wife and three children, there were 

 many cases wdiere they received far more than their actual needs. 

 He produced statistics to show that the childless married and the 

 unmarried constituted 62 per cent, of the male wage-earners, 

 while the married with one child were another 8 per cent. It 

 followed that tor 70 per cent, of the population the minimum 

 wage was far more than adequate. But the other 30 per cent, 

 received barely sufttcient to support their wives and children. As 

 Mr. Piddington put it, the existing organisation of the minimum 

 wage i^rovided for 450,000 non-existing wives, and for over two 

 million non-existing children. 



In order to meet these difficulties Mr. Piddington recom- 

 mended an ingenious scheme. He argued that each employee 

 must cost the employer an equal amount, otherwise there would 

 inevitably be a disastrous preference of unmarried men and men 

 with small families. On the other hand, it is equally necessary 

 that the man wdtli a large family should receive enough to keep 

 his household in reasonable comfort ; yet if all receive the standard 

 of the man with the family the State would be bankrupt. He, 

 therefore, suggested that each employee should receive enough 

 to keep a man and wife (this in order that he might have oppor- 

 tunity during his bachelorhood, which ends on the average for 

 the whole Commonwealth at the age of 29, to save up for 

 equipping the home.) This figure, he suggested, might be fixed 

 at i4 a week, which would be only a slight addition to the 

 existing minimum wage. He then went on to propose that each 

 employer should pay into a central fund the sum of 10s. 9d. per 

 week, "^and that this should then be distributed out again to the 

 maiTied men at the rate of 12s. per child per week; thus the 

 wage for a married man with three children would be <£5 16s. 

 a week, while the obligation on the employer would not be greatly 

 higher than the rate at which the minimum wage was already 

 fixed. 



It is clear that this scheme does find a way out of one of the 

 serious difficulties of the wage system. Mr. Seebohm Eowntrec 

 pointed out many years ago^ that so long as the worker had only 

 himself or his wife and one child to support he lived in conditions 

 of reasonable prosperity, but as soon as the family increased all 

 members of it necessarily suffered from demoralising poverty. 



^ Poverty : A Study of Town Life. 4th Edition, p. 136. 



