ral interest. Nor has
it, as is sometimes claimed, the authority of being altogether
necessary. It is the product of a multitude of forces, some of which may
be given different importance in the future than they had in the past.

It is easy to foresee the difficulties with which a policy which planned
to create an ordered scheme of wage relationships by maintaining
existing differentials would be confronted. Claims will constantly be
presented by particular groups for some improvement in their economic
position. These claims could not be disregarded merely on the score that
they contravened the scheme of established differentials. The issue that
would arise is clearly exemplified by statements made in the course of
two of the most important industrial conflicts that occurred in England
of recent years. "We claim," the Secretary of one of the Shop
Committees of the Molders' Union wrote in defense of the demand of his
union for differential treatment under an award made for the whole of
Engineering Trades--which demand provoked the molders' strike, "we claim
that our work is totally different in many ways from the other
departments in the engineering industry. It is arduous, dirty,
dangerous, hot, unhealthy, and highly skilled, and we claim separate
treatment on these grounds. There is no other department in the
engineering industry with so high a percentage of sickness or
accidents.... You mention the employers' attitude towards the molders'
application--a refusal to grant to molders any separate consideration
because other classes of workers would also expect it. To me such an
attitude is both unfair and untenable. If the molder can prove that his
conditions of working are vile, dangerous and unhealthy, it is surely
fair to ask for a proper recompense for such work...."[137] And consider
this extract from one of the reports of the Coal Industry Commission,
signed by six members of the Commission. "It will, however, be said that
desirable as may be an improvement in the miners' conditions, the
industry will not bear the cost of a reduction in hours, even if the
aggregate output is, by an increase in numbers and, therefore, in the
wages bill restored to its pre-war level, without involving a
considerable advance in the price of coal, with possible adverse
effects on our export trade, on manufacturing industry generally, and on
the domestic consumer. We have to observe that if the improvement in the
miner's standard of lif