This reasoning seems quite academic,
in view of the fact that it is the most oppressed workers who are
usually the least able and willing to assert themselves. Give them
shorter hours or better wages, and they will soon be pleading for
still shorter hours and yet higher wages. Wherever the regulation
of wages, through that most democratic method, that of wages boards
composed of representatives of workers and employers, has been
attempted, organization has been encouraged, and this plan of
legalized collective bargaining has been applied to trade after trade.
In Victoria, Australia, the birthplace of the system, and the state
where it has been longest in force, and more fully developed than
anywhere else, the number of trades covered has grown in less than
twenty years from the four experimental trades of shoemaking, baking,
various departments of the clothing trades and furniture-making to 141
occupations, including such varied employments as engravers, plumbers,
miners and clerical workers.
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