12.—The design of the living wage policy is to procure for all members of the industrial community the economic essentials of a hopeful and active life. Ultimate success in the maintenance of any conceived standard of life, will, in the long run, depend upon those general relationships which were examined in the earlier chapters. The more productive the industrial organization as a whole is, the better are the chances for the least favored industrial groups to improve their economic condition. The less the economic waste, due to maldistribution and to other causes, the greater the product of industry will be. The greater the economic capacity of the lowest grades of wage earners, the more general their intelligence and the steadier their spirit, the more determined their organization, the better will be their chances of increasing their share of the total product. And lastly, the smaller in numbers these are compared with the need of the economic system for them, the stronger their economic position will be.
This is but to restate some of the important influences governing the wages of the lowest groups of industrial workers. But to restate them is to emphasize the fact that the living wage policy must be looked upon merely as one agency among many, directed to the same end. In economic affairs, as in political affairs, to bring about a change in one place it is necessary to bring about a change in many places.
FOOTNOTES:
[113] The best short summaries of the pre-war wage situation are—"The Standard of Living among the Industrial People of America" (1911), by F. H. Streightoff, and an article by C. E. Persons in the February, 1915, issue of The Quarterly Journal of Economics. For a more extensive study see the Report of the Commission of Enquiry of the Board of Trade (Great Britain) into working class rents, etc., which contains material of great value. A recent comprehensive survey of wages in the United States, undertaken by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the War Industries Board was published in May, 1920. It is Bulletin No. 265, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Industrial Survey in Selected Industries in the United States, 1919."
[114] South Australian Ind. Reports. Vol. 2-3—1919. Page 6—Submission by Employees in Cardboard Box Industry. Quoted from Printing Trades Case.
[115] Labor Gazette of the Dominion of Canada, August, 1918, page 617.
[116] As reported in the Survey, April 6, 1918.
[117] Second Annual Report of the Minimum Wage Board, District of Columbia (1919), page 18.
[118] An excellent study of the technique of measurement of the cost of living is that by W. F. Ogburn, "Measurement of the Cost of Living and Wages." No. 170, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (1919). The article helps to put much firm ground under the feet of those engaged in cost of living investigations for the United States. For a description of the methods pursued in official cost of living investigations in Great Britain, see the account by F. H. McLeod in the June, 1919, issue of the U. S. Monthly Labor Bulletin, page 119.
[119] The Plumber's Case, South Australian Industrial Reports (Volume I, 1916-18), page 122.