1.--We can now enter upon the further question of whether the principles so far formulated, if used in wage settlement, would produce such distributive results as would justify them to the wage earners and the community in general. It need hardly be said that the criterion of justice which will be applied by public opinion to any policy of wage settlement will not be a simple and clearly defined rule, but will be, rather, one joint in a loosely articulated social philosophy. The distributive justice of any set of wage principles will be judged by the shares of the product of industry which take the form of wages and profits, respectively. It is true that general satisfaction with them will be largely governed by the course of real wages after they have been in force a while. If real wages tended to increase in the period following their adoption, they would receive far greater approval and much sturdier defense than if real wages fall during that period. Most witnesses of the Australian experiments in wage settlement make that point clear.[147] But in either case, if the organizations of the wage earners in the United States become as powerful as they are in England to-day, and if the class-consciousness of the wage earners becomes as acute, any policy of wage settlement will be severely scrutinized in regard to the profits return prevailing throughout industry also. If, with the principles in force, the general level of profits throughout the field of industry consistently and considerably exceeded what was deemed to approximate a fair return, it will be held that they give the wage earners too small a share in the product of the industry. If the general level of profits throughout the field of industry tended to approximate a return thought to be fair, the principles will recommend themselves to the wage earners and to the community in general, as just. It may be added that the opinion held in regard to the justice of the principles of wage settlement may also be influenced, in some degree, by the distribution of the profits return in industry. If a comparatively few great industrial corporations earn very great profits, it is likely to arouse greater dissatisfaction than if the same amount of profits are earned by a larger number of enterprises. It is beyond the scope of any policy of wage settlement, however, to control the distribution of profits among the enterprises engaged in an industry.