Wages are, and can only be, payment for work done and services rendered by the “wages staff.” There must always be a maximum limit to wages and a minimum. The employers’ maximum is a wage beyond which any advance, with other costs of production remaining constant, would prevent the marketing of the product at a commercial profit commensurate with the nature of the enterprise. The theoretical minimum is a “living wage,” i.e. bare cost of subsistence, but the Trade Union minimum wage, which is the practical minimum in industry, is much higher than the subsistence wage. It is a wage which in the particular industry provides for subsistence for the worker and his or her dependants, including therein food, rent, fuel, light, clothing, fares, Trade Union subscriptions, etc., and reasonable enjoyment and recreation. Trade Union minimum rates for different trades varied before the war from one another by “vocational differentials.” A skilled man’s rate exceeded that of an unskilled man by a recognized excess; the excess is the trade differential in respect of the skill required of the particular tradesman, the length of apprenticeship necessary to acquire it, the nature of the occupation and so forth. The higher rate of the skilled man is naturally reflected, as statistics show, in a higher standard of living. The whole problem in arriving at a fair wage is to determine at what point, if any, between the existing Trade Union minimum and the employers’ maximum, the wage ought to be fixed, in justice to the workers, employers and the public. By way of preliminary I would emphasize that no fair wage can be fixed on any basis of a priori reasoning. It involves constructing a theoretical household budget, adopting an empirical standard of life, with no relation whatsoever to the normal circumstances of any section of the industrial community, ignoring economic conditions, and assuming that industry can or ought to pay a sufficient wage to maintain that standard. That is the fatal method of the doctrinaire. The usual procedure is for the Trade Unions to demand an increased wage, and swear by all the gods that the employers can easily pay it. The employers then assert with equal emphasis their inability to pay any increase. Sometimes a compromise is reached and sometimes not. There should be, and indeed is, a better method of procedure.