F.~ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 127 



been expected, for example, that wages would be high in an industry 

 like railway transport, which enjoyed a monopoly and had a relatively 

 inelastic demand for labour. In fact, before the war they were low ; 

 since then the railwaymen have had the advantage of effective union 

 organisation, and their wages have risen disproportionately to others, 

 in spite of the invasion of the railways' monopoly by road transport and 

 consequent depression of the industry. Another influence is ' shelter ' 

 from foreign competition, possibly only a temporary influence, but one 

 that has operated throughout the post-war depression. Before the war, 

 when they were organised, the ' sheltered ' industries were on a level 

 with the ' exposed ' industries, compositors on a level with miners, brick- 

 layers with fitters ; to-day they are on a higher level. When they were 

 unorganised, they were relatively poorly paid ; to-day the Trade Board 

 minimum for certain of them is as high as, or higher than, the standard 

 rates of skilled men in engineering and shipbuilding. It is not suggested 

 that the public regulation of wages is the sole or chief explanation of 

 these divergences ; the differing fortunes of the ' exposed ' and ' sheltered ' 

 industries would account for even wider divergences ; but regulation 

 may explain why the ' exposed ' industries have not been able to transmit 

 to other industries a portion of their losses. Another factor that appears 

 from a comparison of wage-movements in different occupations to be 

 exercising a greater influence than before the war is the possibility of 

 bringing political pressure to bear upon the employer, which the 

 employees of public authorities can exploit. More important is the 

 share in the advantages of monopoly, or partial restriction of competition, 

 which employers have established and workpeople are able to share. 

 Thus, in the textile industry the finishing trades are combined and enjoy 

 a prosperity which the great spinning and weaving sections allege is 

 partly at their expense ; the spokesmen of the finishing trades reply that 

 their charges have not risen out of proportion to their costs, and in 

 particular their labour-costs, which the relatively high level of wages in 

 these trades confirms. 



We may conclude that the extension of trade union or Government 

 control over the whole field of commercial wage-employment has cancelled 

 an advantage, which the workpeople in the organised trades used to 

 possess, and, by so doing, has increased the relative influence which other 

 elements of monopoly or bargaining-advantage exercise upon wages. 

 The extension would be an almost unqualified improvement, if its effect 

 was to confine wage-claims to amounts that could be justified by the 

 increased efficiency of industry, to which the control of wages contributed. 

 Since, however, there are other conditions, which enable or encourage 

 one trade to profit at the expense of others, and since the different con- 

 trolling authorities carry on the pre-war trade union tradition of 

 considering only the needs and possibilities of their own trade, the general 

 extension of control may result in a general attempt to secure more wages 

 than can be paid. This suggests a third possible result of the change 

 that we must consider.^ 



' The competition between different groups for the national income is not confined 

 to industrial wage-earning occupations. Other classes are also affected by it. The 

 extension of collective bargaining, therefore, may enable industrial wage-earners as a 



