SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Notice in this column doer 710i nectssardj preclude eubseluent reo:ce.] The Next Step : a Family Basic Income. By A. B. Piddington (Macmillan. ls. net.)—Mr. Piddington, the chairnian of the recent Australian Royal Commission on the " basic wage," explains in this pamphlet his proposal to enforce a minimum wage calculated upon the needs of a family, with an endowment for children, to be paid out of a tax on employers. The " basic wage" in November, 1920, was to be llis. a week for a family of a man and wife with three children under fourteen. The author asserts that Mr. Hughes, after rejecting the scheme, accepted it in principle so far as the Commonwealth Civil Service was concerned. Mr. Piddington declares that Australian industry could stand the strain of paying this high minimum wage pro- vided that bachelors received less than the " basic wage " Pahl to married men. He shows that the existence of Federal and State
Wage Boards working on different lines creates much confusion. He does not see that the real cause of the trouble is the Australian workman's persistent endeavour to get high wages without earning them.
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