38 MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES

had obtained a lowering of rates by a threat, considered as real and
not as a bluff, otherwise to discharge their workers.?* Mr. Wolfe gave
the case as exceptional.
The problem of whether efficiency of production has been influenced
by the board system was discussed by T. B. Harmer, representing
the Eastern Counties Wholesale Clothing Manufacturers’ Association.
When questioned by the Cave Committee on December 6, 1921, he
stated that-—
The trade-board regulations determined employers in the country districts to
introduce the team system which was prevalent in the larger centers, with the
consequence that production became very much more rapid. Each person,
instead of doing the whole process, does a very small part.”
Another angle of the same question was examined by E. H. C.
Wethered, chairman of various trade boards. He stated, when questioned
 by the committee on February 1, 1922, that “old-fashioned
and badly managed shops in an industry may find it impossible to
come up to the standard of wages imposed,” but that he had “never
heard a suggestion of an industry being stopped as such.” 2¢
In summing up this evidence, several points seem to be practically
uncontested :
1. “Sweating” has been very considerably reduced, and much
misery has disappeared.
2. Minimum wages do not tend to become the maximum.
3. There is a tendency to make up for the higher wages by foreing
 the workers to work harder and by using better machinery.
thereby increasing the efficiency of production.
4. The cooperation on the trade boards works for industrial peace
(a point more significant in Great Britain, as compared with the
United States and Canada, as Great Britain has established numerous
wages boards for male workers).
5. Good employers welcome the acts, particularly that of 1909, as
protection against “sweaters.”
6. Industries have not been destroyed by the minimum wage legislation.

7. There have been no particular complaints from the public as
to the increase of prices, an indirect consequence of the higher wages.
As the laws refer to unorganized trades where wages in general
were unduly low, the public was generous enough to aceept the burden
 without protest. The votes in Parliament were not a partisan
issue, and the representatives of the wealthy classes agreed. These
statements are, however, more unreservedly exact for the law of 1909,
referring to sweated trades, than for the law of 1918, referring to
unorganized trades generally.
8. The only peint on which the evidence is inconclusive and the
opinions rather contradictory is the question as to what extent slow
workers have been thrown out of employment and as to whether or
not general unemployment has been increased. The question is, of
course, vital for Great Britain. The conclusion seems justified, however,
 that neither the individual hardships nor the increase in unemployment
 have been very great.
* Great Britain. Ministry of Labor. Minutes of evidence taken before the committee
of uly into the working and effects of the trade boards acts. London, 1922, p. 20.
em, p. 324.
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