OROANISATION OF INDUSTRY. 513 



found employment in the cities, the others would have to 

 accept licenses for the country districts ; when all who could 

 be employed in the country districts had been provided for, 

 licenses would be available at lower rates for taking up new 

 Australian lands, such workers having a prior right to 

 licenses for the more remunerative employment. This would 

 operate in two ways. It would settle throughout the country 

 numbers of unemployed and the latest arrivals who now 

 remain in the towns, and it would send to the rougher work 

 the men most incompetent for the other employments. The 

 industrial license would be to some extent a certificate of 

 competency. The system as contemplated would be to 

 secure the thorough and complete co-operation of the com- 

 petent and better class of workmen. The worker who could 

 not in the first instance find employment in the city would be 

 content to take the country work for a time. The industrial 

 and temperate would in time be recognised as having a prior 

 right to the better class of Hcenses. Those who were only 

 fitted for the rougher work would find their places. 



The system in this respect would secure the employment of 

 capital and work for unemployed which would not otherwise 

 be forthcoming. Wherever profit can be made after paying 

 wages at a definite rate, capital will, as a rule, be available 

 for its employment. There is work which could be carried 

 on in the country at a lower rate of wages than that which 

 prevails in other employments. The wool-producing industry 

 is possibly the most profitable in Australia, and the highest 

 wages earned in the country are at shearing. Higher wages 

 can be paid in the manufacturing industries than are paid to 

 a farm labourer. If, after all have found employment, capital 

 should be forthcoming to take up new lands, to open new 

 mines, or to clear lands already taken up at lower rates, and 

 there are numbers unemployed, the unemployed must accept 

 the lower rate of pay, at least until better wages are pro- 

 curable. Employment might be found in this way without 

 reducing the current rate of wages in other employments. 



By means of this system the vexed question of freedom of 

 contract would be solved ; the undue competition which is 

 the basis of all the disadvantages with which labour has had 

 to contend, and which the unions have been only partly able 

 to remedy, would be absolutely at an end. 



One objection will be forthcoming by employers to this 

 system. It will be said power is always liable to be abused, 

 and the workmen, whose numbers will be limited in the par- 



