fluctuations, the retail prices are much more stable. They
lag behind the wholesale prices both on the rise and on the
fall, but more on the fall than on the rise." Mitchell,
"Business Cycles," page 39. The tables given apply to the
1890-1910 period in the United States. They do not show
fluctuations for periods less than a year.

[64] W. C. Mitchell, "Business Cycles," page 39.

[65] Adam Smith, "Wealth of Nations" (Cannan's Ed.), Vol. I,
page 87.

[66] See pages 203-7, Chapter IX.

[67] These in general were the motives for the passing of
the Temporary Regulation of Wages Act in England (1918).
"During the period of six months from the passing of this
act, any person who employs in any trade or industry a
workman of a class to which a prescribed rate of wages as
defined in the Act is applicable, shall pay wages to the
workmen not less than the prescribed rate applicable to
workmen of that class, or such other rate as may be
substituted for the prescribed rate by the Interim Court of
Arbitration ... and if he fails to do so, he will be guilty
of an offense under this Act."

CHAPTER VII--THE STANDARD WAGE

Section 1. The remainder of the book will consist of an attempt to
mark out principles of wage settlement that could be applied with
relative peace and satisfaction in the settlement of wage
disputes.--Section 2. Some preliminary notes on the subsequent
exposition. The question of the political machinery required to put
any policy of wage settlement into effect, avoided on the
whole.--Section 3. The principle of wage standardization defined
and explained.--Section 4. The characteristics of the standard wage
examined.--Section 5. The effect of the standard wage on individual
independence and initiative.--Section 6. The effect of the standard
wage on the distribution of employment within the group.--Section
7. Its effect upon industrial organization, prices, and managerial
ability.--Section 8. Its effect upon the output of the wage
earners. This question cannot be satisfactorily discussed apart
from the larger one--that of the effect of unionism upon
production.--Section 9. Wage standardization and the "rate of
turnover" of labor.

1.--In the first two chapters the aims towards which any policy of wage
settlement for industrial peace should be directed were discussed. In
the following four chapters an effort was mad