One of the demands of workers in many industries which, before the war, paid in different districts rates of wages varying according to local economic circumstances, is for uniform national wage rates. This is a result of the war. There was, during the war, no time to consider the wage-circumstances of individual works—the pressing need was munitions at any price—hence Government Departments responsible for production were compelled to treat wages in industries under their control, especially those in which there had been no pre-war defined district practice, on a more or less uniform national basis. Thus, substantially the same standard, as distinct from minimum, rate of wages for the same grade of workers came in time to operate generally throughout the country, in all works in a particular munitions industry. In some of the more highly organized industries the addition of the same war advance preserved district differentials of the same pre-war nominal amount, but the pre-war ratios of the district wages to one another were greatly reduced. So workmen in a particular district, where, for economic reasons, wages had been lower than in other districts, found themselves on much the same wage-level as workmen in the highest pre-war rated district. A difference of 5_s._ between 35_s._ and 30_s._ per week is very different from 5_s._ between 80_s._ and 75_s._ Naturally, the worker will not willingly surrender that position; hence the claim to-day in many industries for standard national rates. It is an impracticable demand under ordinary commercial conditions, save in exceptional cases where you have one employer running all works in an industry, as the Government did munitions during the war, or different employers each possessing balanced undertakings which comprise establishments both above and below average efficiency. The demand for standardization is illustrated in the railwayman’s wage settlement; numerous classes of men (excluding drivers and firemen) previously in railway service have been reduced to a small number of grades, and the individual in those grades receives, generally speaking, one of three descending national rates of pay according as his work is in the London area, one of the provincial towns, or in a rural part of the country. Sailors’ and stokers’ wages are also standardized, the same rates of pay for the same class of man being paid in vessels in the same trade category. It is obvious, however, that neither railways nor shipping nor docks are analogous to industries consisting of an enormous number of widely different concerns. On the other hand, it is quite practicable to have uniform national conditions of employment, overtime, night-work, Sunday-work, etc., and in many industries there is such national uniformity. Wage-Relationships among the Workers