[63] "While these two series (i.e., of wholesale and retail food prices) agree closely in the general trend of fluctuations, the retail prices are much more stable. They lag behind the wholesale prices both on the rise and on the fall, but more on the fall than on the rise." Mitchell, "Business Cycles," page 39. The tables given apply to the 1890-1910 period in the United States. They do not show fluctuations for periods less than a year.
[64] W. C. Mitchell, "Business Cycles," page 39.
[65] Adam Smith, "Wealth of Nations" (Cannan's Ed.), Vol. I, page 87.
[66] See pages 203-7, Chapter IX.
[67] These in general were the motives for the passing of the Temporary Regulation of Wages Act in England (1918). "During the period of six months from the passing of this act, any person who employs in any trade or industry a workman of a class to which a prescribed rate of wages as defined in the Act is applicable, shall pay wages to the workmen not less than the prescribed rate applicable to workmen of that class, or such other rate as may be substituted for the prescribed rate by the Interim Court of Arbitration ... and if he fails to do so, he will be guilty of an offense under this Act."
CHAPTER VII—THE STANDARD WAGE
Section 1. The remainder of the book will consist of an attempt to mark out principles of wage settlement that could be applied with relative peace and satisfaction in the settlement of wage disputes.—Section 2. Some preliminary notes on the subsequent exposition. The question of the political machinery required to put any policy of wage settlement into effect, avoided on the whole.—Section 3. The principle of wage standardization defined and explained.—Section 4. The characteristics of the standard wage examined.—Section 5. The effect of the standard wage on individual independence and initiative.—Section 6. The effect of the standard wage on the distribution of employment within the group.—Section 7. Its effect upon industrial organization, prices, and managerial ability.—Section 8. Its effect upon the output of the wage earners. This question cannot be satisfactorily discussed apart from the larger one—that of the effect of unionism upon production.—Section 9. Wage standardization and the "rate of turnover" of labor.
1.—In the first two chapters the aims towards which any policy of wage settlement for industrial peace should be directed were discussed. In the following four chapters an effort was made to throw into clear light the forces and relationships which determine wages at the present time. The way has thus been prepared for an attempt to work out principles for use in the settlement of industrial disputes. Past experience in industrial arbitration or adjudication is a fertile source of suggestion in this endeavor; although much of it has been rather like a search in the dark for objects not too well described beforehand. The definition of aims was an attempt to find out the objects of our search. The analysis of the present economic situation and of wage principles was an attempt to get acquainted with the area in which the search must go on.