There are in practice two objects to achieve. First, to ensure that each grade of worker gets a fair wage which corresponds to the “ability wage,” and secondly, to try and keep the wages of workers in one industry in proper wage-relationship with the wages of comparable workers in other industries. If the existing wages are less than the “ability wages,” and the latter are either equal to, or less than, the comparable wages, there ought to be an advance of the existing wages up to the ability level, and, in my view, a further advance beyond ability level towards, but not exceeding, the comparable wages-level, if the circumstances of the industry are such, as for example, in respect of foreign competition, that the market price of the product can be increased by the necessary amount. It is so essential for the harmony of industry that the wages of comparable workers should be generally on the same level. There is no difficulty in practice in saying who are comparable workers. Industrial experience and tradition have firmly settled that. In the case, comparatively rare in practice, where the level of ability wages is higher than the level of comparable wages, other considerations arise. Some employers contend that to pay in one industry that can afford it a higher rate of wages than in comparable industries that cannot afford it is to upset the equilibrium of wages in those latter industries, and incite the workers in them to ask for the same wages rates, thus involving a charge upon the whole or a section of the public forming the consumers of the product of those industries with the usual results. Other employers assert that comparable wages are the criterion of fair wages, and as employers have to stand the risk of paying Trade Union wages when profits are not adequate, so, therefore, employers, when profits are exceptional, should be entitled to retain what remains after comparable wages are paid. I do not see why the employer should be entitled to appropriate in such a case the difference between the ability wages and the comparable wages. In my view, if an industry is shown by a joint cost investigation to be able to pay wages which are higher than comparable wages, the amount of the proceeds of the industry beyond the sum necessary to pay wages at comparable rates should be divided equally between employers and workers and consumers—in the case of the latter by a reduction in price. The workers thus secure a share in the prosperity of the industry.