[136] See for examination of this question, "Report of Wage Boards and Industrial and Conciliation Acts of Australia and New Zealand." E. Aves (1908), page 38. Mr. Henry Clay in a review of the wage position before the National Council of the Pottery Industry (Great Britain), made an interesting statement in this regard. He said "... the one great lesson which the war taught everybody (including Government Departments) was that it was dangerous to make a change in the wages or basis of earnings of one section of workers or of one industry unless they considered what would be the effect on all related classes and grades of workers." Printed in the Staffordshire _Sentinel_, Oct. 8, 1920. See also Chapter 39, Lord Askwith's "Industrial Problems and Disputes" for a narrative account of the trouble caused by sectional wage advances during the war. [137] Letter printed in London _Times_, January 13, 1920. [138] Report of the Coal Industry Commission (1919), Majority Report, pages 15-16. For another interesting case, see that of Various Toronto Firms vs. Pattern Makers under the Canadian Industrial Disputes Act, in which case the pattern makers claimed differential treatment over machinists and molders. Reported in Jan., 1919, _Canadian Labor Gazette_. [139] The various courts in the Australian dominions tended on the whole to confirm existing differentials, occasionally changing the relative position of particular groups, when it has seemed clear to the court that the wages of these groups as compared to other groups is "unreasonable" considering all those factors which are considered to form the ground of "reasonableness" in the matter of differentials. Thus Justice Brown of the Industrial Court of South Australia has expressed himself on this very subject. "In the matter of such perplexity some guidance is afforded to the court by custom. It seems to me I cannot do better than proceed on this basis. I shall state the preexisting wage, consider whether it is prima facie unreasonable applied to preexisting conditions, and then if I find it not prima facie unreasonable, I shall consider whether any variations of the wage should be made in view of conditions now existing." (Hook Boys' Case--South Australia Industrial Reports, Vol. I, 1916-7, page 29.) [140] It is in this light that the Commonwealth Court of Australia looks upon its secondary wage. "The secondary wage is remuneration for any exceptional gifts or qualifications not of the individual employee, but gifts or qualifications necessary for the performance of the functions." H. B. Higgins, "A New Province for Law and Order," _Harvard Law Review_, March, 1915.