s, the
controversy which arose over it, when first it was introduced, is far
from quieted. This is explained, in part, by the extreme difficulty of
getting evidence as to its results which is beyond the shadow of doubt.
That is due, in part, to the great variety of conditions under which it
has operated. Its results are always complicated by circumstances which
differ from place to place. Again, there is the fact that such
experiments as that of the living wage are apt to be judged from a
rapidly changing viewpoint.

The very conscientious efforts which have been made, however, to measure
the effect of the various experiments with living wage legislation
furnish us with much valuable material on most of the debated matters.
No attempt can be made here to reproduce the various sides of the
controversy, or to summarize the evidence which has been collected upon
the disputed aspects of the subject.[126] Much of it covers the same
matters which were treated in our analysis of the principle of wage
standardization. In my opinion, the existing evidence warrants the
advocacy of an extension of the living wage policy in the United States.
It furnishes us also with valuable instruction as to the form in which
the policy is likely to work out most satisfactorily.

The value of the living wage principle as an instrument for bringing
about an improvement in the economic condition of the lowest grades of
industrial workers, without producing equivalent harm in any other
direction, is also supported by general theoretical reasoning; that is,
by a study of the forces which govern wages in general, and the wages of
these lowest groups in particular. In the study of these forces, earlier
in the book, it was pointed out that the outcome of distribution may be
affected by just such assertions of purpose as that represented by the
living wage policy. If labor organization has been able to increase the
wages of certain groups of wage earners without doing equivalent harm in
any other direction, there is reason for believing that a living wage
policy can accomplish something of the same result for the lowest grades
of industrial labor, which have been up to the present practically
without organization. And, indeed, in England, the Trades Boards, which
are the machinery of the living wage policy, are ordinarily regarded as
fulfilling practically the same functions as organization does for the
more favorably placed groups.[127]

Furthermore