o regulate wages upward
in the case of certain low-paid wage-workers. The modern[9] movement
for the minimum wage began in Victoria in 1896, and it soon extended
to nearly all the other Australasian states. Great Britain applied the
plan in 1910 to industries in which wages were exceptionally low. The
plan was first adopted in the United States by Massachusetts in the
year 1912, tho in an emasculated form, and spread so rapidly that at
the end of 1915 it was found in at least 11 states. Minimum wage
laws usually lay down "a living wage" as the standard to be used,
and either prescribe a flat rate of wages, or, more often, leave the
decision in each case to the wage commission established to administer
the law.

Generous sympathies have guided this movement of which much has
been hoped and which, on the other hand, has always had its adverse
critics. The most that can be claimed for it by its friends after more
than twenty years of experience, is that the "dire predictions" have
not been verified. In truth it would seem that the plan as yet has not
been tried on a scale that could yield very large fruits either
for good or for evil. The persons whom it is sought to aid are only
selected groups of the lowest paid workers, generally limited to
minors and young women, who in many cases are those of immigrant
families in urban districts. A large volume of discussion on this
subject has developed, mostly of an _a priori_ nature, of which we may
here touch only a few of the salient points.

At first glance the principles involved in the legislation limiting
hours and those in minimum wage legislation may seem to be the same.
But an important difference soon appears. In the former case the evil
is that of a too long working period, injurious to health, and this
can be reached directly and stopped by an efficiently administered
law. But in the latter case the real evil is industrial weakness and
incapacity such that the workers are unable to command "a living wage"
in a competitive market. A minimum wage law, by itself, neither cures
the industrial incapacity nor ensures employment to the industrially
weak at any wage. The law does not attempt to compel employers to
employ at the legal minimum wage every one who wishes to work; it
merely declares that the employer shall _not_ employ any one whom, in
his employ, he finds to be not worth that high a wage.

Sec. 10. #Some problems of the minimum wage#. Unless the demand for a
p