452 AUSTIiALIAX WAGE PHOI'OSALS. 



Students of the conditions of the unskilled labouring classes have 

 been coming more and more to the same conclusion, namely, 

 that the only way in which industry can bear the imposition of 

 the minimum wage necessary for a civilised existence is by the 

 establishment of a differential scale varying in accordance with 

 the size of the family. In a very different sphere it may be 

 noted that the Wesleyan Church has for long paid its ministers 

 on this basis. A man's salary automatically increases with the 

 number of dependent children. 



The Federal Government, while refusing to accept the 

 findings of the report of the Basic Wage Commission or the 

 Chairman's recommendation, announced that in the public service 

 of the Commonwealth steps were to be taken to give to all 

 married men £4 a week with an additional endowment of os. 

 per child per week. This was coupled with the announcement 

 that the amount of endowment was not being put forward as 

 necessarily sufficient. Since that time Australia, like the rest 

 of the world, has suffered from a slump, and for the time being 

 the proposals of the Commission and its Chairman have been set 

 aside. Indeed, from the latest telegrams received from Australia, 

 it appears that as far as rural workers are concerned the minimum 

 wage is to be given up. But the difficulty which Mr. Piddington. 

 almost for the first time, had to face on behalf of an entire 

 nation, still remains. 



Any reader who faces the problem must admit : 



(1) That the wage paid by the employer to every worker 



doing the same kind of work should be identical, other- 

 wise there would necessarily be a preference for the 

 cheaper worker, resulting in the expulsion of the higher 

 paid one. 



(2) That man}' industries cannot bear the imposition of a 



wage necessary to supply the full family needs of the 

 man with a wife and three children. 



(3) That from the standpoint of the community it is, never- 



theless, not desirable that the larger families should be 

 penalised by poverty. 



On the contrary, nearly everybodj^ who has studied tlie 

 question has agreed that any system which leads the moi"e 

 prudent and reasonable of the workers to restrict their families 

 is imdesirable. 



If these three points are conceded it follows automatically 

 that some modification of the wage system is desirable, to enable 

 a fund for child endowment to be formed. Somewhat similar 

 experiments are being tried by some of the German industries 

 and German mimicipalities. Mr. Piddington 's memorandum is 

 mainly interesting as having laid down on a strictly scientific 

 and statistical basis the needs for such modification, and some 

 suggestions as to the methods by which it would be worked. 



