The Contemporary Review, Vol. 67

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Excerpt from The Contemporary Review, Vol. 67: January-June, 1895It must equally be put to the credit of the present Council that it has settled the Fair Wages question for its contractors as well as for itself. Many town councils up and down the country are still labouring with this issue, which London has at last got rid of. All firms tendering for the Council's work are required to specify the wages they pay for each particular craft. If the work is to be executed within the London district, it is an easy matter to see whether these rates correspond with those in the Council's Standard List. If the work is to be done elsewhere, it is found, in practice, quite possible to ascertain, by inquiry of the proper local officers of the associations of employers on the one hand and the trade unions on the other, whether the proposed rates are really those current in the district. Firms accusing themselves of paying less than these rates are informed of the fact, as a reason why their tenders are not accepted, and have, therefore, full opportunity of correcting any injustice. This system works smoothly and well. The good con tractors fall easily into line with it, and most of the minority of Councillors who honestly believed it to be impossible of execution, now recognise that they were mistaken. Here, again, the key-note of the Council's policy is, not the abolition of competition, but the shifting of its plane from mere cheapness to that of industrial efficiency. The speeding up of machinery, the better organisation of labour, the greater competency of manager, clerk, or craftsman, are all stimulated and encouraged by the deliberate closing-up to the contractor of less legitimate means of making profit.' Just as the Factory Acts, the Mines Regulation Acts, and the Education Acts rule out of industrial competition the cheapness brought about by the overwork of women and children, or the neglect of sanitary precautions, so the London County Council, representing the people of London, declines to take advantage of any cheapness that is got by merely beating down the standard of life of particular sections of the wage-earners. And just as the Factory Acts have won their way to economic approval, not merely on humanitarian grounds, but as positively conducive to industrial efficiency, so, too, it may confidently be predicted, will the now widely-adopted fair wages clauses.'l'About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.