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were substantially increased. If such a case should come before me, I should feel it incumbent upon me to place the issues fairly before the applicants so that they could determine the better course to pursue. If they chose not to insist upon an award of the Court, but to remain at the lower wage, or at some compromise between the lower wage and what I should deem a living wage for women, I should need very strong reasons to induce me to interfere. In any case, under Section 21 (i.) of the Industrial Arbitration Act of 1912, the Court has power to dismiss any dispute or matter, or refrain from hearing or from determining a dispute or matter, if it appears that the dispute or matter is trivial, or that, in the public interest, further proceedings by the Court are not necessary or desirable.

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On the other hand, if it should become necessary in a case to determine the living wage for women, I feel that the Court ought to exercise its discretion conservative basis, and not fix an amount which is above that which is really necessary for purposes already indicated. I might mention several reasons:-(a) The woman worker in the past, in my opinion, has been underpaid. I attribute no blame to employers, for they have been guided by the only available principle-supply and demand. An employer may wish to increase the rate of wage for women, but immediately he would find himself confronted by the difficulty of competing with other employers not similarly minded. Without, however, attributing any blame to employers, I still believe that women, on the average, have been underpaid in the past. To increase their wages to a very great extent would involve a great deal of industrial dislocation. I fear some industrial dislocation must result in any case, but one should endeavour to minimise the dislocation so far as is consistent with the application of sound principles. (b) The problem of domestic service, so essential if Australia is to maintain its rate of population increase, is bound to be prejudicially affected by the award of a higher wage for women than has

hitherto been customary. Even at present there is the utmost difficulty-certainly amongst the working classes and persons of modest incomes-in getting domestic assistance; hence, in part, the growing sterility of the population, which is a most serious menace to the future of Australia. If to-day so many women would rather work in factories at a low wage than go into domestic. service, what would happen if the wages for women in factories were doubled? It may be necessary to declare a living wage for women greatly in excess of the customary wage now prevailing. But there are obvious reasons for proceeding with the utmost caution. (c) As wages and profits come out of prices, a substantial increase in the wages bill of the community will come largely out of prices, with the result that the male employees, the bread- winners of the families, will be contributing towards the wage of the women employees who have only themselves to maintain. Of course, I am here speaking with special reference to the living as distinct from the minimum wage for women. The latter wage, as I have already shown, may at times have to be determined by reference to the minimum wage for men in the same industry or calling.

Postscript: The Present Situation and Outlook.

Unavoidable delays in the publication of the present volume must be my excuse for a postscript. Australia, in common with other countries, is suffering at the present moment from an unusually acute attack of industrial unrest. A few remarks may serve to bring the above chapter up to date. In so far as I venture to speculate on the future, it will be understood that I do so subject to the usual reservation as regards the acts of God and the King's enemies. A single scientific discovery or invention, a catastrophe, a war, pestilence or famine-any of such events may affect the social trend in ways which cannot be predicted or even guessed.

1. The causes of industrial unrest are world-wide. Locally, the most evident cause is the still increas

ing cost of living. Wages here, as elsewhere, continue on the upgrade. Locally, though the rate of wage necessarily reacts upon the cost of living, a survey of the position from 1914 to date justifies the conclusion that within that period prices have raised wages to a greater extent than wages have raised prices.

2. If prices in the world markets should decline, the present tendency to raise the rates of wage may be checked. Even the power to maintain the present rates of wage would appear to be conditional on the assumption of an increasing output, or of such an increase in the Federal tariff as would go far to neutralise in Australia the operation of the causes which may be expected to reduce the cost of living in other countries. On the other hand, if the wages are increased, or even maintained, a failure to raise the tariff would tell for the extinction of many industries, and a drift of a large section of the city employees to the country. However much the last-mentioned result might be theoretically desirable, it seems very doubtful whether any political party would venture upon the policy implied. In other words, the prospect of any material decline in the general level of prices is not promising, while an advance upon the existing wage standards is likely to be conditioned by the extent to which those "complementary agencies of social amelioration," to which I have referred in the above chapter, are actively operative. The ability of Industrial Courts to raise nominal wages may be without practical limit; the ability to raise real wages is not. Industrial Courts have been much criticised; but the criticism, where not inspired by blind or sinister class interest, is very frequently the expression of a pathetic expectation that they could achieve the impossible.

3. The drift of world ideas, the increasing cost of living, and the immense financial burden added by the war, combine to give an impetus to a movement on the part of a very large section of employees towards syndicalistic forms of social

reconstruction.

The movement is evidence of a despair of effecting desired changes either by Legislation or by Industrial Courts. The assumption is made that the support of the popular majorities, necessary for radical and enduring social reconstruction, can better be obtained by the methods of force than through the medium of the ballot box. Logically, one would imagine that if the Official Labour Party could capture and hold a popular majority of the electors, force would be unnecessary, whilst if the party could not do this, force would be useless, not to say dangerous. However this may be, the syndicalistic movement at present grows. Assuming for a moment that the movement were successful, Industrial Courts might suffer a period of eclipse, though the period would probably be temporary. The new social order could only endure on condition of a return to the spirit of legality, and to institutions which would be necessary for the expression of that spirit in a world of fallible human beings. In particular, the interests of the consumer, and the need for adjusting the relative claims of employees in different industries, would be outstanding matters for supervision and control on the part of public tribunals.

4. Assuming the syndicalistic movement to be unsuccessful, as, indeed, a calm and comprehensive survey of available material suggests, attacks on Industrial Courts might be expected to follow from the side of the employers. But I incline to think that employers as well as employees would have learned much, and that the immediate objective would not be the abolition of the judicial regulation of industrial conditions, but an improvement in the present machinery, particularly as regards the co-ordination of Federal and State systems, and such amendments of Industrial Legislation as would remove, as far as practicable, those causes of the complaints which are made to-day, either by employers or employees. Co-partnership, or other. forms of mutual aid, might multiply; but their activity would be limited to the particular concerns

or industries in which they were established, and, in any case, the outstanding matters referred to in the previous paragraph would call for public supervision and control.

5. Despite the gloom of the present financial outlook, and despite the existing social, political, and industrial unrest, I see no reason for doubting that, so far as concerns any future about which it is worth while at the present moment to speculate, the judicial regulation of industrial conditions, like democracy, has come to stay. Better education, a broader and more sympathetic vision on the part of the electorate, and improved machinery for expressing and for giving effect to the general will, appear to indicate the natural and probable lines of evolution during the period which lies ahead. But, in any case, the path to be trod is not likely to be an easy one, either for Courts or for the community. On the contrary, I am inclined to think that no small part of education in the near future will be in the expensive school of experience. Personally, I deprecate the lock-out and the strike; it is part of my judicial duties to repress or prevent them. But they may have, at a period of rapid transition, a certain educative value both for employers and employed. Only out of bitterness, and the discovery of the ultimate futility of unceasing conflict, will some men learn the elemental truths which condition social progress and enduring social betterment. Upon the long day of the war and its aftermath, the sun threatens to descend in black clouds and darkness. But even so, it will rise again—I hope and believe upon a new and more stable social order. Should this hope prove justified, the work of Industrial Courts is likely to be not less but more responsible, if not more exacting. Alongside of the code of property, contracts and wrongs, possibly transcending that venerable code in importance, will be found a new and more adequate version of those rules of new Industrial Law which to-day are only beginning to take form.

W. JETHRO BROWN. Adelaide, 29th March, 1919.

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