pro THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.'] SIR,—The proposal to regulate
wages in the interests of unorganised workers is directly and logically connected with the provision of old-age pensions, and should be strenuously resisted by all thoughtful economists. The mischief of the Poor Law in operation before 1834 was that it constituted in fact a State-subvention of payment made in exchange for labour. That is precisely what the old-age pensions will at once become ; public opinion as to a "living wage" will cease to operate because the future has no longer to be pro- vided for; and, moreover, the door is opened to further Socialist provision from the public purse. The only remedy apparently is State regulation of wages, which constitutes in fact a bounty upon production, the very antithesis of the Free-trade principle. It is earnestly to be hoped that the Spectator will continue to criticise and oppose such an alliance of the party of real progress with that of a democracy ignorant of the economic principles that have produced the com- mercial prosperity of the last fifty years ; it can surely only be as a concession to his impatient democratic wing that BO able a financier as Mr. Asquith consents in these ways to cut a Gordian knot that by its complexity calls for more laborious undoing. And one may prophesy that his empire thus hastily acquired will, like Alexander's, speedily fall into disruption and economic disaster. There is a plain and simple way that leads to improvement in the conditions of unorganised labour. It is that of compulsory registration. There are many registration agencies and more or less private labour bureaux, and these, by affording a channel for information both to the workers and to the public, have in fact done much to increase payments, as witness the immense improvement in the position of domestic servants. Were this principle universally applied, the unorganised would become loosely organised, public opinion would operate more intelligently than it does now, and a step would be taken in the direction of those combina- tions which are the logical means of resisting the demands of unscrupulous employers.—I am, Sir, &e.,
W. STANLEY ANDERTON.
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