88 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES
Storrow, at that time a member of the nationally known
Boston investment banking house of Lee Higginson and
Co. In its decision, the Board said :2
It may be said that if the Board of Arbitration is justified
in causing wages to drop off sharply exactly in proportion
to the drop in the cost of living this action must be predi-
cated upon the assumption that the original basis upon which
the wages were established was correct.
In the following year (1923), Mr. Henry C. Attwill,
Chairman of the Public Service Commission of Massachu-
setts, as chairman of the board that arbitrated between the
Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Company and its
employees, in his award said:
I have given careful consideration to the arguments ad-
vanced on behalf of the Company. I do not think that I
should be bound by the yardstick of the increased cost of
living as determined by a government board. Undoubtedly it
should be given consideration, and it is helpful in the deter-
mination of the questions submitted, but if wages of the
employees are to be measured solely by that, there is no occa-
sion for arbitration.?
The prevailing opinion was further reflected in the con-
clusion of the study of railway arbitration principles by
Dr. J. Noble Stockett, Jr., already referred to, which had
been made before the war, but which so effectively stated
the post-war attitude that it may be cited at this point.®
The underlying principle [it was stated] of the increased-
cost-of-living argument is the maintenance of the standard of
living, Taken by itself, therefore, it has no claim as a basis
1 “Award of Board of Arbitration between the Springfield Street Railway
Company et al and the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Rail-
way Employees of America.” February 23, 1922, p. 11. .
2 The italics in this quotation are ours, as in all succeeding quotations, unless
otherwise noted.
37. Noble Stockett, Jr., “Arbitral Determination of Railway Wages.”
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918 (p. 118).
Ae.
