n should be construed so as to
permit of all methods of wage payment.

When the introduction of standardization into a hitherto unstandardized
industry or occupation is deemed to involve the possibility of doing
more injury to certain sections of the wage earners and employers
affected than it promises definite good, the application of the
principle should be limited or varied so as to avoid producing such
injury. Differences in the natural advantages possessed by various
enterprises in the same industry, and relatively great and permanent
differences in the cost of living in different localities--these are
likely to be the chief grounds for limitation or variation in the
application of the principle. The exceptions or variations admitted on
these grounds would vary greatly in character and extent no doubt. It is
to be expected that they would be numerous. Under certain conditions it
might also prove advisable to grant "nominal variations" of the standard
wage. Such "nominal variations" would ordinarily be established to
compensate for differences of conditions of work governing output in
piece-working trades, when such differences of conditions must be
accepted as permanent, as in coal mining; or to cover payment in kind or
to make up for irregularity of employment.

The process of wage standardization should be regarded as an independent
process, as a process logically prior to the other principles of wage
settlement (though they may all be applied at the same time). That is to
say, the determination of the level of standardization should be fixed
upon independently of all other principles of wage settlement. The
principal data to be taken into consideration when fixing the level of
standardization should be the actual variety of wage rates in the
industry or occupation in question. Wherein the scale of actually
existing wage rates, the level of standardization is set will be a
matter of judgment and compromise. Usually the correct level will be at
the higher range of the wage rates already being paid. If any of the
existing wage rates in an industry or occupation are higher than the
level of standardization which is fixed, the higher rates should
ordinarily not be lowered to the level of standardization.

_Secondly_--The wages of those groups of wage earners who are at the
bottom of the industrial scale should be regulated upon the living wage
principle. That is to say, the policy of wage settlement for these
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