gântés_. After all, even the good things the reformers have procured for the working-men are not good for all. Take as an instance the minimum wage. It is good for the middling worker, for the man who is neither weaker nor stronger, better nor worse, than his fellows. It is not good for the man who is above them, because the universal high rate of pay prevents the employer from being able to raise it in any particularly promising case; already they pay so much that they can do no more. Neither is it good for the old or the feeble, for the pottering odd-jobman who is not up to a regular hard day’s work, and yet who could keep himself—at a time when his family are probably out in the world and doing well—by his own small exertions; living on far less than the minimum wage allows, and still feeling he is taking his part independently in the battle of life. As another instance of the two-sided way things work, take the Trade Boards. There are now fifty-nine special Boards in Melbourne, by which the rates of wages and prices for piece-work are fixed, the average wages since the establishment of these Boards having risen very materially—in the bakers’ from £1 12s. 6d. a week to £2 4s. 7d.; in the furniture trade from £1 9s. 1d. to £1 16s. 8d.; in the bootmaking trade from £1 3s. 2d. to £1 16s. 8d., to cite only a few examples. In the face of this it is evident that the workman need not feel disturbed by any fear of being underpaid; the Board connected with his special trade will see to that for him. But, on the other hand, the high rate of wages—which sends out of the country a great quantity of work which might just as well be done in it—makes it possible that, as the population increases, the Australian workmen may be faced by a serious lack of employment, besides raising the cost of some articles very considerably. To take one instance. In 1908 Victoria exported 1,680,294 pounds of frozen beef. I presume all the cattle so used possessed skins—indeed, it was proved by the export of raw hides—and yet the leather imported into the State that same year was valued at £275,291, and the Australian workman pays more for his boots—if they are of leather—than does the English workman.