THE WAR PERIOD—AN INTERREGNUM 49

finally decided, for reasons of expediency, not to apply
this principle in a general or arbitrary way, but only to
sanction it in specific cases where wages were abnormally
low and where the physical maintenance of labor for war
production was being impaired. The specific case which
had brought the principle up for consideration—the Machinists
 of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, vs. Employers—
was one of this character. In the decision rendered, the
cost of living was disregarded as a guide, and the existing
rates of pay—15 to 20 cents an hour—advanced to 40 cents
an hour, which was decided upon at the time as a necessary
minimum hourly rate of pay for unskilled laborers.
Accompanying the decision, however, a resolution was
adopted, setting forth the attitude of the Board to the
‘living wage” principle. It was resolved:
That this war is not only a war of arms, but also a war of
workshops; a competition in the quantitative production and
distribution of munitions and war supplies, a contest in industrial
 resourcefulness and energy;
That the period of the war is not a normal period of industrial
 expansion from which the employer should expect
unusual profits or the employees abnormal wages; that it is
an interregnum in which industry is pursued only for common
 cause and common ends;
That capital should have only such reasonable returns as
will assure its use for the world’s and Nation’s cause, while
the physical well-being of labor and its physical and mental
effectiveness in a comfort reasonable in view of the exigencies
of the war should likewise be assured;
That this board should be careful in its conclusions not
to make orders in this interregnum, based on approved views
of progress in normal times, which, under war conditions,
might seriously impair the present economic structure of our
country;
That the declaration of our principles as to the living wage