Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/933

EFFECT OF AN INCREASE IN THE LIVING WAGE 897 of living will decline. But if we accept the view that upon an in- crease in the living wage there should be an immediate and com- plete adjustment of all existing awards, then we ought also to accept the view that when an industrial court should be happily in the position of being able to lower the living wage owing to a decrease in the cost of living, then all awards properly before the court should be adjusted in accordance therewith, although such awards had not expired, and although the employees working under them would naturally feel that they were entitled to the schedule of rates during the normal continuance of the award. One further matter seems not unworthy of consideration. There can. only be one living wage for unskilled labor; and that is declared by courts from time to time with a view to assisting the court in new cases which may come before it. I fear that if, without statu- tory sanction, the court were to adopt the view that wholesale ad- justments of existing legal rights and duties ought to be made, the result might be to exercise a depressing influence upon a judge who is called upon to revise the living wage. If the living wage and the secondary wage are limited to new cases, and to isolated existing awards, then the effect of a rise in the living wage on the cost of living is not so immediate or potent, and the obligation cast upon industry is an obligation which gradually takes substance as new cases come before the court, and as existing awards run their course. I think I have said enough to show that while a court may have technically the power to make such adjustments as it deems proper with regard to awards properly before it, there are strong reasons why the powers should be exercised with considerable caution. . I have tried to state these reasons at their full value. They must be read, however, in conjunction with the reasons expressed earlier, — why secondary minimums should be sufficiently high to stimu-' late the ambition and effort of the worker, and also in conjunction with the reasons, which should be obvious, why even the unskilled workers throughout the various branches of industry should be in receipt of at least a living wage. It is only thus that it is possible to arrive at sane conclusions. We cannot answer a reason by ignor- ing it: nor can we appreciate the importance of a reason without viewing it in relation to other reasons — pro and con. Compre- hensively considered, the whole question which I am now consider- ing must be admitted to be one of extraordinary delicacy and diffi-