44 POLITICAL ECONOMY 



they include others which are uncondemned by the principle 

 hitherto employed to distinguish good from evil. These are 

 the rules as to over-time, piece-work, and the standard rate 

 of wages all vexed questions. The standard rate of wages is 

 differently interpreted by men and masters. The men say 

 ' it is a minimum below which no one of our members shall 

 work, and we will take care to have no members much below 

 the average. If we do not carefully select our members as 

 competent workmen, they will not find employment at all at our 

 standard rate. We shall then have to support these incompetent 

 members out of our own funds ; we are therefore bound, under a 

 very stringent penalty, to admit none but competent workmen.' 

 The masters, on the other hand, declare the so-called minimum 

 to be virtually a maximum, fixed so high that they cannot afford 

 to give the best workmen more than the standard rate, because 

 they have to pay the inferior men more than their value. They 

 also allege that the men interfere to prevent skilled workmen 

 obtaining higher wages. This the men deny, we think with 

 truth, alleging that masters are not at all in the habit of offering 

 superior men higher wages. The masters allege that they would 

 more often do so if they were not afraid that the rise would be 

 made a pretext for a demand for an increased standard rate ; 

 they also express great compassion for the inferior workmen, 

 who, not being worth the standard rate, cannot get employment 

 at all. On this last point all grievance would cease if there 

 were no coercion against non-society men. The inferior work- 

 man would simply not join the society, and the master could 

 then pay him what he pleased. We doubt whether the best 

 masters would be very anxious to see him in their shops. We 

 think the men have here the best of the argument, and that 

 the masters are hardly candid in speaking of bargains with 

 individual men. Such bargains never have been common. 

 New workmen are almost always engaged at the current rate 

 for average workmen, and either kept or dismissed without 

 material change in those wages, unless the rate changes. Mr. 

 Smith in his evidence, in answer to a leading question, says, 

 ' he ' (the employer) ' would not bargain with each individual 

 man,' but points out that if he wanted more workmen he would 

 instruct his foreman to offer 6d. a day extra, that is to say, over 



