The Committee therefore recommended, first, that Trade Boards should be
set up only in trades which were sweated and which were badly organized, and, secondly, that it should be possible to vary the minimum rates much more quickly than under the present cumbrous system. There are far too many of these Boards ; they give employment, no doubt, to deserving officials, but they are too often a drag on industry. The Com- mittee rejected the suggestion that Parliament should abolish the Boards and prescribe a national minimum rate of wages in every trade. That cure would be worse than the disease. The Committee, as we are glad to see, proposed that district committees should be established under the Boards, especially for the distributive and retail making-up trades. The Boards have done great, harm to the tailors,: milliners and shopkeepers generally in the smaller country towns by fixing minimum wages that can be paid by employers only in the large centres of population. The small local industries which ought to be encouraged have thus been hard hit, and their workpeopk have been driven to the large cities. The trade unions and the department stores have doubtless benefited by this policy, but the country towns and the nation as a whole have suffered. The State control of industry always seems to• do more harm than good.
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