As opposed to any larger scheme of conciliation for all trades, this plan had to Sir Charles's mind certain marked advantages: it would not interfere with the activities of the great trade-unions which already stood possessed of similar voluntary machinery, while its application only to those whose depressed and miserable condition invoked public sympathy would create an atmosphere likely to induce successful and harmonious development.
In 1898 he introduced his Wages Boards Bill, from that time annually laid before Parliament; but it made no progress, and there were moments when even his optimism almost failed. It was not till 1906, when a Sweated Industries Exhibition was organized by the Daily News, that a step forward was made. The sight of the workers, engaged in their ill-remunerated toil, brought home to the public an evil till then too little realized. The movement was international. A similar exhibition in Berlin had already been held, and others now followed in America, in Continental countries, in Scotland, and in various parts of England. In this country a National Anti-Sweating League came into existence. A great meeting of trade-unionists and Labour representatives was held at the Guildhall, Sir Charles Dilke presiding on the first day, and the question of the minimum wage was debated by Labour; Sir George Askwith, Mr. Sidney Webb, and Mr. W. P. Reeves, with other Colonial representatives, speaking from the platform. Many conferences followed, and M. Vandervelde came from Belgium, M. Arthur Fontaine from France, to combat insular and Tariff Reform arguments, and to point out that the movement was not confined to our own shores. A great deputation representative of every shade of political opinion, introduced by Sir Charles Dilke and the Archbishop of Canterbury, waited on the Prime Minister on December 4th, 1908, and laid their views before him. Sir Charles put the Bill into the hands of the Labour party in Parliament. A Committee of the House was appointed to consider the question of home work and the proposed measure, and, after the stages which Mr. Hills has described, it became law as the Trade Boards Act in 1909. The Act at first applied to only four trades, but there have been several additions. Of the first extension made after Sir Charles's death, and of the probability of the adoption of the scheme by other countries, Sir George Askwith wrote: "It will be the first stone on Sir Charles's cairn. I can see them all coming up the hill, nation by nation."
[Footnote: France, the first nation to reach the hill-top, passed her
Minimum Wage Act for home workers in 1915.
Minimum rates of wages under the Trade Boards Act were in operation in
Great Britain (February, 1915) as follows:
Female Persons over 18
per Week of 52 Hours.
Per Hour. Per Week.
Ready-made and wholesale bespoke tailoring,
and shirt-making 3-1/2d. 15s. 2d.
Chain-making 2-3/4d. 11s. 11d.
Paper-box-making 3-1/4d. 14s. 1d.
Lace-finishing 2-3/4d. 11s. 11d.
Sugar confectionery and food-preserving 3d. 13s. 0d.
Tin-box-making 3-1/4d. 14s. 1d.
Metal hollow-ware 3d. 13s. 0d.
It is to be noted that these rates of wages, which are in every case much higher than those they supplanted, were fixed before or in the early part of the War, and owe nothing to the general inflation of earnings which took place at a later stage. From the figures of the Board of Trade Enquiry into Earnings and Hours of Labour, published in 1909, it appears that about one-third of the women employed in factories and workshops were at the time of the Enquiry in receipt of wages of less than 10s. per week, and the minimum rates above mentioned must be considered in relation to these, and not to later figures.
In the various trades, shirt-making and lace-finishing excepted, minimum rates of wages have also been fixed for adult male persons. These rates before the War were, save in one case, 6d. per hour or upwards, and probably one-quarter of the adult male workers in the trades benefited by them.
The relief given by the Boards to groups of particularly ill-paid women, such as the chain-makers, the matchbox-makers in East London, and the lace-finishers, has been the subject of many articles in the Press.
In the chain-making trade, where the Board affected both wives and husbands, the family income increased, in many cases, by 15s. and upwards per week. The bearing of these higher rates of wages on the food and clothing of those who received them, the physical condition of the school-children, and personal and social habits, forms part of the story which Mr. R. H. Tawney tells in Minimum Rates in the Chain-making Trade.]