policy should be calculated to result in such a distribution
of the product of industry as would justify it to the wage earners and
community in general. The scheme of wage relationship would have to rest
upon expressed principles.

In the beginning any policy which has as its aim the establishment of a
scheme of wage relationship must accept and protect the existing wage
levels of each group of wage earners. That would mean, of course,
accepting the wage relationships existing between them. The reasons for
this are practical, rather than theoretical. They are: Firstly, because
it will be impossible to win general consent for any policy of wage
settlement which does not guarantee to all wage earners at least their
existing rates of wages. Secondly, because the existing relationships
between the wage levels of the different groups of workers represent,
though only vaguely and roughly, customary relationships, and they
therefore have, on occasion, meaning to the wage earners. Thirdly, the
mere fact that they exist makes them the most convenient basis for the
very careful process of comparison and calculation involved in any
attempt to establish gradually a scheme of wage relationships based upon
principles. It should be kept in mind, however, that the reasons for
their acceptance are of a practical nature, and that no theoretical
considerations compel an unquestioning acceptance of them, as is
sometimes urged.

3.--Since, on practical grounds, it is held that any attempt to create
an ordered scheme of wage relationship must begin by accepting existing
wage levels, it may be judged by some that the scheme that is sought
could be developed merely by maintaining these relationships. That would
mean that existing differentials would be maintained as customary
differentials. That policy, it is true, would have the advantages of
simplicity and continuity. But it would be found impossible to maintain.
For the scheme of wage relationship to which it would give rise would
lack the authority of principle--without which no scheme of wage
relationship will receive voluntary and steady support from the various
groups of wage earners. The wage earners will not voluntarily accept a
place in the industrial scale, unless it is felt that the scale is the
result of the application of rules of acknowledged fairness. The
existing scale of wage relationship, however, has not been determined
either by considerations of justice or of the gene