have the factory laws expressly prescribed generally a minimum wage to be paid in all occupations, but the particular decisions given by the judges in the cases brought before them in the Arbitration Court, and the whole trend of the actual working of the mechanism thus provided for the promotion of industrial peace, have assisted to enforce certain conceptions-such as the prevention of sweating and the preferential treatment of organised labour-which are intimately associated with what would probably be here regarded and described as socialistic interference with individual liberty. In fact Mr. Aves' Report on this division of his subject seems to us to confirm the conclusion that may, we think, be drawn from another notable recent publication, which has come from the pen, capable and informed, if not perhaps entirely unprejudiced, of a Secretary to an Employers' Association in New Zealand, respecting the advantages and disadvantages of such forcible devices, as compared with the more optional and voluntary methods which have succeeded in this country in this particular department of industrial life.

It was apparently the object of the introducers of this legislation in New Zealand to keep the compulsion of the State in the background as an effective last resort, when the preliminary means of amicable conciliation between masters and their men, which were placed in the forefront, had manifestly failed. It was also the acknowledged purpose at the outset, as expressed in the actual details of the Act, to combine with as much informality as possible the binding sanction of the law. But what has happened in actual fact? The Boards of Conciliation have proved admittedly a failure; in the vast majority of cases the quarrels have been taken at once directly to the Court of Arbitration; the possibility of promoting the cardinal tenets of a favoured conception of industrial society by legal decisions in their support has encouraged the deliberate manufacture of disputes; and the judges, with the instinct and the training of their profession, have approached the questions brought before them from a standpoint which seems obviously to exclude that mutual "give and take" which are the essence of voluntary discussion, and have conduced to the remarkable results accomplished in this country in many trades and districts. Mr. Broadhead, the author of the book to which we have referred, supplies many examples of the actual text of the judgments delivered in the Courts; and it is instructive and significant to note how the judge habitually sets himself the familiar task of endeavouring to construe the statute, or statutes, which govern his action, and how employers or employed have unwittingly found themselves entangled in the meshes of precedents enforceable at law, giving effect to those larger purposes of a socialistic or semi-socialistic constitution of society, which we have indicated. The figures no less than the facts supplied by Mr. Aves confirm generally Mr. Broadhead's

verdict.

But the main subject which engaged the attention of this special investigator was that of the actions and effects of the Wages Boards. Here Mr. Aves endeavours conscientiously to ascertain and

to exhibit the actual influence exerted by these Boards, especially in Victoria where they have been most conspicuous, on economic and social conditions, and he tries, where he can, to measure these influences by the testimony of statistics. He considers such questions, for example, as continuity of employment, quality and output of work, the displacement of the old, infirm and slow (for whom it may be noted, as a general feature of the system, that a possibility of the allowance of special rates has usually, if not invariably, been contemplated), and the prevention of sweating. Out of a total of 4,766 factories registered in Victoria in 1906 some 3,372, it seems, belonged to trades where Boards had been established, and of 39,614 male workers, and 27,931 female workers, 26,063 male and 22,715 female workers were brought under the operation of the Boards. Of the large range of their influence on industrial occupation in this particular area there can accordingly be little doubt. In a total of 49 Boards it appears that the wages fixed for adult workers were increased in 25 cases, 6 of which were unimportant, while substantial advances were not, on the other hand, very frequent. But per contra the reductions made have been, he tells us, quite insignificant." When, however, he proceeds to the further inquiry of interrogating figures respecting the influence of the Boards on such points as the average earnings, or the earnings of either sex, or the amount of juvenile and female labour as compared with that of adult males, he is, as we should perhaps expect, more successful in emphasising the qualifications with which any particular inference must be accepted, than in establishing very definite or precise conclusions. From such data, for example, as he has succeeded in obtaining with respect to male earnings, we learn that two points are clearly demonstrated. But they are negative rather than affirmative. The points are such as to neutralise to some extent the supposition of any special beneficial influence exerted by the Boards. The first is the "continuity" of the general advances in most of the Board Trades not only after but before the "Determination period"; and the second is the wide field over which "independently" of the Boards these advances had been taking place.

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From statistics Mr. Aves is accordingly compelled to turn to opinion, sentiment and impression, and here he admits at the very outset that "on almost no positive point is there general agreement." "Employers are," he says, "unanimous in one negative conclusion, namely that Special Boards are preferable to Arbitration Courts." "There is also a very widely spread belief that the Boards have been instrumental, some say in abolishing, and others in modifying, the evils of sweating,'" and again, "from complex motives," there is "a great preponderance of opinion among all classes in favour of the retention of the Boards." "But as to whether it is desirable to extend them, as to what their power should be, and as to their effects there is the greatest possible diversity of opinion." This conflict of opinion he investigates with care and presents, so far as we can see, with impartial fidelity. We notice that Sir Charles Dilke, in his evidence before the Select Committee of the House of

Commons, thinks that Mr. Aves may have taken with him to Australia some parti pris. But Sir Charles himself as the promoter of some similar legislation would, we imagine, hardly claim to approach the question from a standpoint entirely detached, and he seems to quarrel with the final conclusions reached by Mr. Aves rather than with the account given of the system itself or of the opinions of its advocates and critics. Mr. Aves himself reaches this result. "For various reasons," he states, "the evidence does not appear to justify the conclusion that it would be advantageous to make the recommendations of any Special Boards that may be constituted in this country legally binding, or that, if this power were granted, it could, with regard to wages, be effectively exercised."

The Select Committee, by contrast, recommends definitely in its Report to the House of Commons that "Wages Boards should be established in selected trades to fix minimum time and piece rates of payment for Home Workers in those trades," and "that it should be an offence to pay or offer lower rates of payment to Home Workers in those trades than the minimum rates which had been fixed for that district by the Wages Board." But they suggest that this legislation should be "at first tentative and experimental," and be "limited to Home Workers engaged in the tailoring, shirtmaking, underclothing and baby-linen trades, and in the finishing processes of machine-made lace." They prefer the proposal made for the establishment of Wages Boards to the alternative suggestion laid before them that Home Workers, in certain trades, should be required to obtain a licence to work in specified premises. They reach this conclusion partly because the latter plan would encounter formidable difficulties in practice in the number of inspectors required, the amount of inspection needed, and the hardship imposed on the occasional worker, and partly because the former scheme, as they consider, "goes to the root of the matter" which consists in the necessity of some increase in the wages of Home Workers. They recognise, and endeavour to anticipate, the objections which may be advanced against the measure which they recommend; and they acknowledge that Mr. Aves' Report, to which they refer, so far as it is favourable to Wages Boards, deals with Australasian conditions, which differ from the situation in this country, not merely on account of the relative unimportance of Home Work in Australia, and its practical exclusion from the sphere of influence of the Boards, but also because the Colonial experiment has been made in a limited area under conditions which have hitherto favoured the claims of the workers to increased remuneration. There is little express statistical evidence contained in their Report, but the facts of low rates of payment supplied by individual witnesses are significant; and, whatever opinion may be entertained about the efficacy or possibility of the remedial action recommended by the Committee, there can be little serious dispute on the existence, exaggerated as it may sometimes have been in coloured statements, of the grave evils to which their systematic and prolonged attention has been directed.

L.L.P.

6. The Central (Unemployed) Body for London. 1. Preliminary Report, 65 pp., fol. (to 12th May, 1906). 2. Second Report, 149 pp., fol. (12th May, 1906, to 30th June, 1907). P. S. King and Son; and 3. Special Committee on Unskilled Labour. Report and Minutes of Evidence. 249 pp., 8vo. Charity Organisation Society, Denison House, 1908.

These reports have no great statistical interest, but they contain an immense amount of information that ought to be in the possession of all those who are concerned in the problems of unemployment and its relief. The general methods adopted by the Central Body have long been familiar to the public, and many of the results are also known, so that there is no need to describe them in detail. The Central Body, on the one hand, received from 29 borough distress committees details relating to men who appeared to be qualified by character and necessity for assistance; on the other, it arranged, in co-operation with the boroughs, the London County Council, H.M. Office of Works, and other bodies, to undertake work which satisfied as far as possible the following conditions:-That it was useful, of an "exceptional" character (i.e., would not have been otherwise undertaken), and within the capacity of the unemployed men. Its sources of income were voluntary contributions (of which the Queen's Fund formed the great bulk), a rate fund (allocated to expenses of establishment, emigration, and land purchase, &c.), and an Exchequer fund in the winter of 1906-07. The sums received during the whole period from 12th December, 1906, when the Central Body took shape, to 30th June, 1907, appear to have been: rate fund, about 116,000l.; voluntary fund, 67,000l.; Exchequer fund, 49,000l. In the period covered by the Second Report, for which it is easier to extract the particulars from the very complicated accounts, 194,000l. was expended. Of this, 82,000l. was spent in wages, allowances, and supervision (3,000l.) at the various works undertaken; 18,000l. on establishment charges of the Central Office and distress committees; 6,000l. on the establishment of employment exchanges; 42,000l. on emigration and migration; and the great part of the balance on the purchase of the Hollesley Bay Estate. About 5,700 persons (including only 308 women) were employed for longer or shorter periods by or through the Central Body, and 1,800 heads of families with 2,657 children were assisted to emigrate. The expense per family (5 persons to 2 families) for emigration is thus about 231. The amount spent in wages and allowances was about 14. 10s. per person employed; the establishment charges about 2l. 10s. per adult, including both those employed at home and those emigrated. Besides this, there is the capital expenditure on Hollesley Bay estate, which remains in the possession of the Central Body.

The most satisfactory part of the undertaking was the emigration, for the great majority of those who crossed to Canada appear to have made a good start. On most other points the results obtained are disappointing. A few, very few, have been trained for work on the land and placed where they are likely to remain. A great many were helped through a hard winter, to the improvement of

their manual skill and physical condition; but there seems no good reason to believe that many, if not most, of the same men were not, or will not be, applying for relief in the succeeding winters. Το attempt to cure unemployment in London, even by such carefully devised plans as those described in these reports, is like filling a sieve with water. Any amount of money could be spent, a certain amount of visible suffering can be saved, but the problem is without end. The reports are overloaded with formal and technical matter, while the lessons of the undertaking are relegated to a few scrappy paragraphs under the head of experience. It is greatly to be hoped that part of the expense of the complex tables of these awkward volumes may be saved in future; that the formal financial statements may be rendered only to the authorities, and short, clear accounts of the essential facts substituted; and that the very valuable experience gained may be given in a clear and well-reasoned summary forming the chief part of a much smaller volume. The Committee has not done itself justice in its report.

Some part of the "experience" may be stated as follows:-The majority of the men are of the unskilled or of the casual labour classes; on beginning work their weakened physique was against them, but, after some malcontents were weeded out, the remainder were able and willing to do a moderate day's work, estimated at about three-fourths of the value of ordinary labour. The value estimated by public authorities of work done for them, however, was very small. Training on the land can only be successful with a small number of Londoners, and only then when places for permanent work can be assured.

It is recognised that several problems are blended together for solution, and discrimination is greatly needed. The main purposeof tiding over hard times for men generally earning an independent living is in danger of being swamped by (1) men permanently unemployable, (2) men needing training to fit them for being employed, (3) casual labourers, who have a permanent dislike of regular work, (4) men thrown out by ordinary seasonal fluctuations.

After reading the reports one can hardly avoid the conclusion that the only way to help men who belong to none of these four classes is not by relief works at all, but by increasing the demand through the ordinary channels of employment, and taking on the best men who offer. This is not the place to discuss whether public bodies can hold over work from busy times to slack times to an extent sufficient to cope with a great part of the difficulty, but there is little doubt that something could be done in this way, producing at least as much as the 80,000l. spent in wages by the Central Body in 1906-07. Where it was known that work was put out with this object, it would be necessary to restrict it to persons who belonged to the district where it was to be done, or to take other means of checking a rush to that district. Wages would then be paid at the competitive rate, and the work done would be worth the expenditure.

The Central Body did not attempt to deal with class 1. They gave training to some persons in class 2. They recommend labour