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president’s ADDRESS — SECTION G. 
the old, and sickly, and ill-trained — will suffer, because contractors 
who were willing to employ them at a lower wage will decline to 
employ them at the higher wage. 
1 here is some truth in this; but the objection is less serious 
than it would be if the regulation applied to private employments as 
well. Government contractors will have to ‘select workmen whose 
work does not fall below a certain standard ; but the vacancies left 
by these workmen in private employments are as likely as before to 
be filled by worse workers at lower wages. Where' a better and 
a worse workman are competing for a place, it is as well that the 
bettor workman should have the preference ; and the public will be 
the better served it only the better workmen are employed in its 
service. If some bad workmen remain unemployed, it may be necessary 
to give them relief at the public cost — as indeed we have to do at 
present. 
. So much for the workers employed by the contractors. But who 
will pay the cost of the higher wages ? 
What has been said of a fixed minimum wage in direct Govern- 
ment employment applies to this case also. The contractors, so far 
as they are compelled to pay higher wages, will raise their tenders by 
the same amount ; and the extra cost will fall on the community. 
Either the public must do without some Government services, or the 
individual taxpayers must do without some comforts and luxuries 
which they could otherwise have paid for out of their private 
incomes; there will be no diminution of employment on the whole, 
but there will be some changes in the application of labour-power, and 
in the distribution of want-satisfaction. If we think the resulting 
distribution better than the old one, we are free to take the course 
which leads to it. 
If it is ever advisable for Government to take these or other 
measures to raise certain people’s wages, it must be because those wages 
would otherwise be too low. But at what point is the lino to be drawn, 
beneath which wages are “too low”— so low, that is, that it becomes 
worth while to take from others in order to increase them ? I know 
no simple answer to this question; the phrase “ a living wage ” is too 
vague to give us any guidance. But it would seem most reasonable to 
make up our minds what rate of pay is to be considered the least on 
which it is possible to maintain a family decently (whether Gd. an 
hour, or Is. an hour, or whatever it may be) ; to require that this wage 
at least shall be paid for all work done directly or indirectly for 
Government ; and to leave all rates of pay above this minimum to be 
settled by free bargaining. 
Now that is not quite what the New South "Wales Department of 
Public Works has done; for the effect of its rule is to fix a higher 
minimum for some kinds of work, and a lower minimum for others. 
Thus, in the schedule issued, the minimum for masons in Sydney is 
fixed at 10s. a day, and that for “ workmen not included iu the fore- 
going list” at 6s. a day. Now if the purpose of Government 
interference is to ensure that the workers concerned shall get enough 
to satisfy their most pressing needs , there seems to he no justification 
for this distinction. If 6s. a day is enough for other labourers, it is 
enough for masons too ; for there is no reason to think that a mason’s 
needs are greater. If, on the other hand, 9s. a day is too little to 
