ADVOCATE AND GUIDE. 75 



else desert the farm for city employment. Interest on cap- 

 ital invested in land, improvements and farming equipment 

 must be as good and as well secured by adequate returns as 

 that invested in city property, or capital will also desert the 

 farm for city investments. 



The basis of city union wages is now regulated by the as- 

 certained cost of maintaining an average family in necessi- 

 ties, luxuries and idleness, or in school, by the head of the 

 family. And this should also be the basis of the farmer's 

 wages collected through the minimum price system herein 

 advocated. 



I shall here introduce two news items to show that the 

 government recognizes the cost of maintaining a family to 

 be the basis of wages and what that cost is ascertained to be : 



"WASHINGTON, March 29, 1918. A national labor policy for the 

 duration of the war and giving a sweeping victory to trade unionism, 

 was signed this afternoon by the representatives of capital and labor, in 

 the labor planning board. The document was drawn up in the form of 

 a letter to Secretary of 'Labor Wilson signed by ten of the foremost labor 

 leaders and representative employers of the nation and by former Presi- 

 dent Taft and Frank P. Walsh, as representatives of the public. It 

 provides for virtually complete recognition of the rights of the union 

 workers, and it was conceded by labor men this afternoon to be their 

 most signal victory in the annals of trade disputes. It includes a dec- 

 laration of principles and policy to govern workers in industry during the 

 war, and a further declaration of the machinery by which future dis- 

 putes between labor and capital may be adjusted, and provides definite 

 and exact terms and means for what might be called ' a supreme court 

 of capital and labor.' This includes a board along the lines of the plan- 

 ning board to adjust labor difficulties. Among the principles, it is un- 

 derstood, there is a guarantee that the common laborer will receive 

 wages proportionate to the high cost of living and will provide for his 

 comfort and health. This alone means that the so-called day laborer 

 will have his wages amount to at least $4.00 a day. 



" WASHINGTON, April 10, 1918. The average American family 

 spends as much today for food alone as it did in 1900 to maintain the 

 entire household. The cost of living has grown double since the be- 

 ginning of the century, according to a report issued today by the bureau 

 of labor statistics. The average cost of household maintenance in 1900 



