18 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
ried on by certain social agencies, was the most significant 
feature of the period immediately preceding the war. 
The facts as to wages and working conditions which had 
been developed by governmental and private inquiries were 
so startling and so fundamental in their industrial, social, 
and civic significance that it was clearly apparent that they 
could not continue to be ignored when considered from any 
standpoint—whether one of humanity, public welfare, or 
even from the point of view of profit or the future effect- 
iveness and productiveness of industry. To students, 
investigators, or industrial leaders with foresight, and to 
all groups of enlightened public opinion, it became increas- 
ingly evident that industry needed a constructive program 
for determining wages which (1) would lead to a wider 
and more equitable dissemination of economic welfare, 
(2) would make possible an upstanding, dependable citi- 
zenship in a self-governing republic such as ours, and 
which (3) in conjunction with improved methods of man- 
agement, would bring about greater productive efficiency 
in industry, and a larger and more stable measure of 
national prosperity. 
The gradual emergence of this point of view was in 
reality the most significant aspect of the pre-war period so 
far as the determination of wages was concerned. Opinion 
was slowly crystallizing toward changed principles and 
practical methods when we entered the World War. This 
interregnum, so to speak, temporarily put aside the move- 
ment then in progress, but the theories as to wage-fixing 
which were being advanced in the years 1914-1916 with- 
out practical success, have finally become, as we shall see 
later, the commonplaces of the post-war industrial world, 
and have not only met with general acceptance and appli- 
cation, but in some of their aspects have been elaborated 
and authoritatively sanctioned in a way that even the most