94 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

Justice Higgins, of the Australian Commonwealth Court
of Conciliation and Arbitration, first declared that the
principle of the “living wage” would be the foundationstone
 of all industrial relations within the purview of that
court. The Act of 1904 creating the Conciliation and
Arbitration Court had provided that the minimum wages
fixed by the court should be “fair and reasonable.” In the
Harvester case of 1907, Mr. Justice Higgins stated that
a “fair and reasonable” wage must mean a “living wage,”
and he then gave his famous standard for the determination
 of a living wage—“the normal needs of the average
employee regarded as a human being in a civilized community.”
 The “average” employee was also further
described by this jurist as a married man with a wife and
three dependent children. Since that time the living-wage
principle has been accepted by every arbitration court in
Australia.

Its DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA

The origin and development of the living-wage principle
in this country has already been set forth chronologically
in- the preceding discussion. It will be recalled that in its
early stages the movement took the form of a demand for
an irreducible minimum wage, in order that industry and
the State itself should be protected from the harmful
effects of the low wage scales then prevailing, This minimum
 was first known as the “subsistence level” of living.
It did not go farther than to provide for the bare physical
needs of industrial workers and their families. It was a
wage which was sufficient to maintain an average employee
and his family only one step above poverty and dependency.
During the years immediately preceding the entrance of
America into the World War, a further advance was made.
"1Ex Parte, H. V. McKay, 2 Commonwealth Arbitration Reports, p. 1.