WAGES IN AUSTRALIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 66, 18 March 1907, Page 5

WAGES IN AUSTRALIA.

According to Dr. Clark, in his "Labour Movement in Australasia," the general welfare of the working classes in Australasia does not differ widely from that in the United States. 'The hours of work are," he writes, "fewer in most occupations, but the wage per hour is less than in America. The cost of living is about the same in both countries. The difference in the wage of skilled and unskilled workers is much greater in our own country, where the common labo-urer is usually either a negro or a foreigner. This variation of wages in the United States, parallel with national trade lines, loosens solidarity of sentiment and class consciousness among workmen, as compared with those of Australasia, where such, conditions do not exist. Not only is the touch of sympathy closer among people of the same nationality and similar economic status, but their rivalry is less keen. Where the difference between the wage of a helper and a jonrayman is 50 cents a day, as in Australia and New Zealand, the former does not make the same effort to drive the latter out of his position that he does when this difference is two or three dollars, as in America. Bnt a marked gradation of wages promotes industrial efficiency, because skilled workers therefore increase their skill, attention, and perseverance, in order to maintain their wage advantage oveT unskilled workers, and the latter for the same reason strive more strenuously to reach an equal status with the men above them. The opportunities for progress within a craft afford to some extent an end of attainment—an object towards wtdch ambition is directed inside the four corners of the industry. This ambition can be satisfied only by individual effort, by each workingman increasing his personal efficiency, not by collective action. But where all engaged in an occupation receive about equal pay, the desire for improvement embodies itself in an effort to raise the wages of the entire group, and thus starts a class agitation."