[60] The data published in the monthly _U. S. Labor Bulletin_ covers most of the articles which are at all important in the wage earners' budget. The collection of such data, however, has remained spasmodic up to the present. See the article by H. S. Hanna in the October, 1919, issue of the Monthly Review of the U. S. Department of Labor. The Sumner Committee Report on the "Cost of Living in Great Britain" 1917 (CD 8980), covered food, rent, clothing, fares, fuel and light, insurance, and sundries. Data was collected for skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled labor. [61] See pages 89-91, Chapter V. [62] See Chapter XII. [63] "While these two series (i.e., of wholesale and retail food prices) agree closely in the general trend of fluctuations, the retail prices are much more stable. They lag behind the wholesale prices both on the rise and on the fall, but more on the fall than on the rise." Mitchell, "Business Cycles," page 39. The tables given apply to the 1890-1910 period in the United States. They do not show fluctuations for periods less than a year. [64] W. C. Mitchell, "Business Cycles," page 39. [65] Adam Smith, "Wealth of Nations" (Cannan's Ed.), Vol. I, page 87. [66] See pages 203-7, Chapter IX. [67] These in general were the motives for the passing of the Temporary Regulation of Wages Act in England (1918). "During the period of six months from the passing of this act, any person who employs in any trade or industry a workman of a class to which a prescribed rate of wages as defined in the Act is applicable, shall pay wages to the workmen not less than the prescribed rate applicable to workmen of that class, or such other rate as may be substituted for the prescribed rate by the Interim Court of Arbitration ... and if he fails to do so, he will be guilty of an offense under this Act." CHAPTER VII--THE STANDARD WAGE Section 1. The remainder of the book will consist of an attempt to mark out principles of wage settlement that could be applied with relative peace and satisfaction in the settlement of wage disputes.--Section 2. Some preliminary notes on the subsequent exposition. The question of the political machinery required to put any policy of wage settlement into effect, avoided on the whole.--Section 3. The principle of wage standardization defined and explained.--Section 4. The characteristics of the standard wage examined.--Section 5. The effect of the standard wage on individual independence and initiative.--Section 6. The effect of the standard wage on the distribution of employment within the group.--Section 7. Its effect upon industrial organization, prices, and managerial ability.--Section 8. Its effect upon the output of the wage earners. This question cannot be satisfactorily discussed apart from the larger one--that of the effect of unionism upon production.--Section 9. Wage standardization and the "rate of turnover" of labor.