SUBSIDIZED WAGES
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,--The issue raised by Sir A. Mond, and made much clearer to many of us by Mr. Bryan, is so enormously important that perhaps you will allow a mere journalist to make a suggestion or two. They are :-
(1) That in connexion with these foreign contracts not only a datum line of employment but a datum 1 i ne of wages should be assumed. We arc not likely to get out of our troubles for three years, at any rate. Could not present wages be stabilized for three years, to give the system a fair trial ? (2) That for this work a datum line of profit should also be taken. I suggest five per cent. dividend and five per cent. reserve. (3) That an accountant approved by the employed and employers should be appointed, to certify the balance-sheets, with the special object of reassuring the employed. (4) And, to my mind most important of all, that the secretaries of the Trade Unions concerned should it on the boards during discussion and settlement of such tenders or contracts, their functions bei g those of Labour advisers. This is in accordance with a remark made the other day by Mr. Neville Chamberlain. They would soon regard themselves as champions of the whole business, and not one part of it, the manual workers, alone.
No doubt there would be difficulties, serious difficulties, especially if or when it came to giving or denying similar terms to other industries, particularly farming. No sensible person wishes to see the 1834 conditions repeated. But there are difficnities in any course. At all events, that urged by Sir A. Mond and Mr. Bryan is positive ; it proposes something direct and practical, which seems to be worthier of our nation than slow bleeding to death. Mr. Bryan shows that the effect of shipbuilding upon many other important industries is so vast and far-reaching that there is a case for special treatment. Desperate diseases warrant desperate remedies, surely.—I am, Sir, &c., 28 Fleet Street, E.C. 4.
ALBERT CARTWRIGHT.
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