Evening Post WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1911. THE LIVING WAGE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 86, 12 April 1911, Page 6

Evening Post WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1911. THE LIVING WAGE.

A brief note in The Post yesterday j referred to the huge dimensions of the problem termed "the living wage,'" i which is as complicated as society it-self, for it involves society from top to bot- ' torn. Ib is vain in England to say that an Englishman's home is his castle if the home is a squalid hovel or hutch, due to the tenant's inability to find a decent "living wage" in the teeming industrial marKet. The family is the basic unit of the nation, and if it is not well with the units it is not well with the sum. If the nation is to bo healthy the families must first be healthy, and for this they must have proper food, shelter, clothing, recreation, and at least "frugal comfort," in the phrase of Mr. Justice, Higgins, provided the heads of the families are willing to work in just measure. The right to live depends on the willingness ' to work worthily. Common-sense, therefore, -demands as a national policy a system of "living wage," if statesmen can agree as to definitions. One troubia is that "living wage" varies not only in different countries, but in the same country at different times. The list of "necessaries'" is ever lengthening with the widening and deepening of educa•tion; yet it should not be impossible, on the law of averages, to work out a scale, for a given class, at a given time and place, at prices current for the neceftari^s and "frugal comfort/." In the view of Mr. Justice Higgins Ihe scale has to be framed to meet tho needs of tho social unit, an average family (man, wife, and three children). I Assume that such a scale lias been drafted, and that the Arbitration Court is asked to decree the wages for a particular industry. The court's first care is to determine what amount the industry can pay in wages. Suppose that the granting of wages, deemed to be "living" for the class in question, involves a loss for the employers, a loss beyond their power to remedy., The sequel to a decree of "living wage" must then either mean tho extinction of the industry or a bounty by the State, to leave some profit on the enterprise. Tho working of any system of "living wage" means that a Government must have a very definite policy about in- [ dustries, and a very definite policy about everything of national importance. It is necessary to examine the indus- ; tries to see which ones are able to stand on their own legs ; it is necessary to gauge the prospects of those industries which may be temporarily weak. It would be futile to grievously tax the country to support an intrinsically weak industry on the "living wage" basis, especially when the country has plenty of useful scope for Ihe energy doubly wasted in putting an incubus on the country. Simultaneously with a courageous, intelligent industrial policy, statesmen (not opportunist politicians) will need to bo working solidly on tho sociological side. For example, allied with the matter of a "living wage" is the legislation concerning compensation for accidents and the provision for annuities and sick pay by a system of voluntary contribution — practically insurance against disablement by age or infirmity. In Germany this insurance is compulsory. "In a German workman's family," recently wrote an official of the German Imperial Insurance Department, "sickness can never mean ruin, since, the necessaries of life aro secured by insurance to those prevented from, and incapable of, working." The current number of the Fortnightly .Review has a very illuminating article, entitled "Insurance Legislation ; the Larger View," showing tho national benefit of ihe German laws. It is even claimed for these laws that the progress made in the crusade against tuberculosis is due to them more than to any other cause, s because the workmen, no longer horrified by the prospect of a heavy doctor's bill, are now careful to get pioper treatment in good time. We have briefly shown how far-reaching must be any policy designed to grapple with the "l;ving wago" problem, but j we are frankly sceptical about any seri- i ous study for the subject by politicians so long as politics are kept on tho old parochial plane.