PRESIDENT S ADDRESS — SECTION Q. 
159 
It is to be observed that, in this case at least, the higher wage 
will not mean diminished employment, even in the first instance, for 
the workers concerned ; for we shall certainly not allow our policemen 
to go unclothed because their clothing costs ns a little more. Either 
the public collectively, or certain taxpayers individually, will have to 
do without some comforts and conveniences which they have hitherto 
enjoyed, and will get in return the satisfaction of having their public 
servants clothed in garments no longer made by over-driven and half- 
starved workwomen. If we prefer the latter luxury to such others as we 
must give up to get it, economic science has nothing to say against our 
choice ; and if there is less work for those who have hitherto supplied 
the indulgences now retrenched, there will be, to the same extent, more 
work for those who supply the wants of these workwomen. 
It would seem then that we can, if we choose to pay the cost, do 
something through our Government to keep wages up to any reason- 
able minimum which Ave may. think fit to fix, in the case* at least 
of work done directly or indirectly for the Government. And in 
Australia this covers a considerable fraction of the whole amount of 
work done and paid for. 
But there still remains the larger amount of work done by wage- 
earners for private employers. W ould it be possible to fix a minimum 
wage for this work also ? And, if so, who is to do it ? 
I he only possible agents would seem to be, first, the trade unions, 
and, secondly, the Government. 
It is one of the chief objects of a trade union to fix and maintain 
such a minimum at as high a point as may be practicable, in the case 
of its own members. The impartial looker-on, while recognising as so 
far good any raising of wages thus effected in any trade, will not be 
satisfied till he has inquired at whose cost the rise has been obtained. 
So far as it comes out of profits which were high enough to bear some 
diminution, the good probably outweighs the harm. If, on the other 
hand, the higher wages cause a great contraction in the trade, the 
lessened employment may cause more loss than gain even to the very 
workers whose wages during employment are raised ; and if they cause 
a rise of price for the product, the result will be a loss to all who buy 
and use the goods. To trace the loss home to all concerned, to esti- 
mate the amount borne by each class, and to reckon the good and 
harm of the total result, is a problem that must be worked out 
separately in each case, and one so complicated that only those who 
are thoroughly familiar with the conditions of the particular trade in 
question can hope to arrive even at an approximate solution. 
In one respect the views and aims of the trade unions in this matter 
appear to have undergone a change. Thirty years ago, I suppose, it 
was accepted on all sides as a settled principle that the price of the 
product must be settled by the competition of the market, and that 
wages must folloAv prices — a principle which, in some Avell-organised 
trades, has been embodied in the “ sliding scale.” But we now find 
an opposite principle asserted : “Fix a minimum wage first; prices 
must follow wages.” 
That is the position taken, for instance, by the NeAVcastle coal- 
miners in New South Wales. The employers say, “ We are making 
no profit now, and cannot, at the present price of coal, pay higher 
wages without ruining ourselves.” 
