ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the preliminary question whether it can in practice be made operative, and whether, therefore, it can really affect the size of the national dividend at all. It deals with compulsory arbitration, to prove that a law will sometimes fail in its purpose is a very different thing from proving that it is futile. It is, therefore, encouraging to learn that State action designed to raise wages in depressed industries has several times led to an improvement in the workpeople’s organisation. The Fair Wages Resolution of the British House of Commons in 1893 endeavoured to secure that Government Departments should use it by demanding that, on Government contracts, not less than “the rate of wages current should be paid to employes.” Critics can easily show that, when employers are extraordinarily obstinate, interference to raise wages cannot be successfully carried out.
