A lecture on "The Minimum Wage and Sweating" wa delivered
by Mr. T. Mackay at a meeting of the British Constitution Associatidh on Monday. Dealing with Mr. Churchill's Bill, Mr. Mackay maintained that the minimum wage would tend to become the maximum rate of pay, and the effect would be to reduce employment in the scheduled trades. This view was supported and developed in an interesting speech by Lord Hugh Cecil, who noted the curious convergence, on this question of regulating trade, of Liberal Free-traders and Conservative Protectionists, and observed that those who believed in State control could not logically stop until they had substituted the State for the individual in all things. For ourselves, we view the Sweating Bill as a purely Pro- tectionist measure, and one quite as sure to injure the poor (whom it professes to help) as the policy of Tariff Reform. Mr. Rills is at any rate consistent ; he is a Protectionist throughout. Mr. Chutchill is only a Free-trader in the case of foreign trade. That appears to be the difference between them. How is Mr. Churchill going to resist the plea that it is no use to fix a minimum wage for making blouses if foreign blouses made in countries where no minimum wage exists are allowed to come in free P We presume he will wait till the demand occurs, and shape his reply in accordance with the play of Parliamentary forces.
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