reasing their wages. Or to state the
matter so as to include both this case and its opposite, the wages in
any particular industry should not be adjusted by reference to the
profits in that industry. It is clear that here we are upon difficult
and very hotly disputed ground.

At present, wages in different industries or occupations are not settled
in accordance with any principle which includes them all and which is
the basis of an ordered scheme of wage relationship. The existence of a
very high profits return throughout a particular industry is an almost
prima facie justification for a wage demand on the part of the wage
earners employed in it. So too in the opposite case. And as long as
wages are settled, as at present, it must be so; for the wage earners in
each industry or occupation are dependent upon their own activity to
make good their claims as against the other participants in
distribution.

It is this very state of affairs, however, that it is sought to
supersede. In an earlier chapter it was argued that in order to maintain
industrial peace, wages in different industries and occupations will
have to be brought into relation with each other, which relation should
rest upon defined principle. It is plain that, if any other principle
were also to be adopted, under which wages in particular industries
were adjusted by reference to the profits return in these industries,
that scheme of relationship would be constantly disturbed. If wages in
particular industries were adjusted with reference to the profits return
in those industries, the result would be a series of uncoordinated wage
movements in different parts of the industrial field, and the
re-creation of a state of affairs not much different from the present.

Then, too, if wages were to be adjusted with reference to the profits
return in particular industries, the method that has been advocated of
settling upon a criterion of just profits would not be suitable. A
separate mark of fair profits would have to be set up for each industry;
for different industries involve different degrees of risk and have
different initial periods of little or no profits. What might correctly
be considered an excessive profit for one industry might be but a fair
profit for another. The task of setting up different criteria for the
different industries would be extremely delicate, if it were possible at
all.

The same conclusion holds true in the opposite case wherein the pr