3
}

MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES

tendency is natural, but overemphasis would be out of place. The
British minimum wage board for agriculture, in its explanation of
the goal to be realized, recognizes that better nourished workers can
also work harder.
More important yet is the European and Australasian situation as
regards the shift from home work to factory work. The same worker
 is frequently put to work at an efficient machine, after having
worked before without such a machine in his or her home. Obviously
the worker is thereby enabled to produce more. The same applies
also to the employer, who becomes more efficient by running a factory
than by relying on home work.
The evidence of the British Cave Committee and the reports of
the Minimum Wage Board of British Columbia show the tendency
of some employers to make up for the higher wages by better supervision
 and application of better technique. The point has its importance
 because reducing the net cost of minimum wage to the
industries.
Protection of Fair Employers

The report of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission
(1919), the standpoint of the employers of the Pacific Coast States,
the attitude of the employers of Victoria, Australia, the stand taken
by the British employers (as described in the testimony of Miss B. M.
Power, chief inspector, before the Cave Committee), all testify that
the fair employers are grateful for the elimination of competition by
“ sweaters.”
The delegates of the British employers at the recent Geneva conference
 favored to a certain extent an international convention for
minimum wage legislation. Great Britain has abolished sweating and
wants to exclude competition from nations which have neglected to do
0. From the same motives, employers who have abolished *sweating
 ” in their own business welcome that protection against others who
have not done so.
Effect on Industries

The British and American experience furnishes no instance of any
manufacturing industry or any mercantile trade hurt in any perceptible
 way by minimum wage, as the increase in cost of production
which these limited laws bring about is too small proportionately.
The prosperity of the women-employing industries of Massachusetts
has grown since the introduction of minimum wage.
Australia applies far more general laws and is ready, on principle,
to suppress an industry if it is unable to pay a living wage. In
practice accommodations have been found and the country continues
to prosper. The same 1s true of New Zealand.
While home industries have been frequently put out of business
through the application of minimum wage laws (as explained in the
ourse of this study), that is the natural course of industrial progress.

Influence Toward Industrial Peace
There are three different situations covered by the laws, to be
distinguished carefully in order to avoid confusion.