104 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
it would be unjust to place them on a lower scale of wages. Moreover, 
the result of such a sliding scale would be to give an undue preference 
to older men, when employment is scarce, at the expense of younger 
men with growing families. At the same time, something should be 
done to meet the case of the old, the infirm, and the maimed, although 
the matter cannot be left to the sole discretion of employers without 
serious risks. In Australia the arbitration laws empower arbitrators 
to license old, slow or infirm workers at lower rates, and I think the 
same principles should be adopted here. In particular, wounded 
soldiers in receipt of a pension should be licensed to accept lower rates 
where their working efficiency has been impaired, since it is an injustice 
that men who have been wounded in the defence of their country should 
be handicapped in getting work. 
The principle of equal pay for the same work leads on to the con- 
sideration of women’s wages. We are all familiar with the battle-cry 
of ‘equal pay for equal work’ which has a convincing ring about it. 
But when one considers it more closely one realises that it is extremely 
difficult to define what is meant by equal work. How are you to com- 
pare the work of a hospital nurse and a stockbroker, or the services of 
a charwoman and a sailor? A comparison between the work of men 
and women is possible where both are doing identically similar jobs, 
though even here there are many different factors which make it diffi- 
cult. | But in practice the tendency is for men and women to do 
different types of work. During the war women to a large extent 
replaced men in the factories, but their introduction nearly always led 
to a reclassification of the work. Except in the earliest days of the war, 
men and women did not work indiscriminately at the same jobs; certain 
classes of work were allocated to them, and, as time went on, they were 
usually collected into separate shops. Since the war men have largely 
reverted to their old jobs, replacing women, and the tendency to 
differentiate between the spheres of men and women grows more and 
more marked. It is the exception that they do the same work as men, 
and a comparison between the value of their work and man’s in his 
different sphere serves no useful purpose. Their wages must largely 
be governed by the law of supply and demand, and since the openings 
for women are relatively fewer than for men; since for a variety of 
reasons their cost of living is lower; and since their average term of 
service is shorter and therefore their experience is less than that of men, 
because they usually cease work on marriage, it is inevitable that, on 
the whole, their wages should be lower than those paid to men. 
The three main principles governing wages, then, are the law of 
supply and demand implying freedom of contract or a willing buyer 
and a willing seller, the cost of living, and the principle that wages shall 
be proportioned to the service rendered. There are certain other con- 
siderations referred to by Adam Smith as leading to inequality of wages 
which may be briefly mentioned. They are: (1) The agreeableness or 
disagreeableness of the work to be done; (2) The expense of learning a 
trade or profession; (3) Constancy of employment: (4) Responsibility ; 
(5) The risk of failure. 
Tt has been suggested that another factor in determining wages in 
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