STANDARD WAGES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 72, 26 March 1909, Page 7

STANDARD WAGES.

HOME AND FACTORY WORK. A BILL. INTRODUCED BY BRITISH GOVERNMENT. By Telegraph.— Press Aeaoclatlon.—Oopyrlglifc. 'Received March 26, 9 a.m.) LONDON, 25th March. In the House of Commons, the Right Hon. Winston Churchi|l, President of the Board of Trade, introduced a Bill to establish certain Trade Boards empowered to fix and enforce minimum standard wages. The Bill will be applicable to home and factory ■ work, and the boards will be given full power of inspection, detection, and punishment. The Labourites enthusiastically support the Bill, which goes further than the Sweated Industries Bill of 1908. The House of Commons, on 21sfc February, 1908, passed the second reading of the Sweated Industries Bill, introduced by Mr. Toulmin, Liberal member for Bury, The Bill was referred to the Home Works Committee. "Labour," said Mr. Toulmin, "had done much for itself, thanks to organisation, but that organisation was the work of individual trades, and as one went down one reached depths at which the atoms had no cohesion. The people would not combine. The first step necessary was enquiry. Under the Bill a trade union or trade council or any six employers or workmen could ask for enquiry, which the Home Secretary would direct. If he thought fit, as the result of the enquiry, he could set up a Wages Board. The kernel of the proposal was to have representatives of the men and the employers sitting together, in equal numbers, with an' independent chairman, with power to draw up a list of wages for the particular trade in that particular district. The tribunal was not new, nor were the duties new. The minimum rate of wages could vary according to the district, as it did now in certain trades. The uovel principle in the Bill," added Mr. Toulmin, "was that the sanction of the State was given to the decision of the board, and that the payment of less than the minimum wage became a punishable offence. This State action was not unknown; it took glace in Melbourne, and had had good results. The Bill was elastic, and its object would be well served by the patient drawing up of lists of wages. No national interest would be injured, capital would not suffer, nor would the consumer, to whom the price would probably not change, though the quality of the work might bo improved."