The British Trade Boards System by Dorothy SellsReview by: C. E. C.Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 87, No. 3 (May, 1924), pp. 462-463Published by: Wiley for the Royal Statistical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2341157 .

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462 Reviews of Statistical and Economic Books. [May,

Having regard to the magnitude and complexity of the work, there were not wanting competent observers who prophesied that the temporary Tribunal had taken on a life job. They were absolutely wrong. Within the short period of less than 2 months practically every important negotiation had been brought to a conclusion, and agreed schemes had been submitted. And even the schemes, which, in accordance with the Act, the Tribunal nominally settled itself after January, 1923, were in almost every case agreed between the parties. In only one case did an important company apply for the decision of the Tribunal; the other cases submitted for its decision were very few and only of trifling financial importance. The Act provided for an appeal on legal points to the Court of Appeal; but the cases that went there could be counted on the finger of one hand. To anyone familiar with the old history of amalgamations and attempted amalgamations, who knows what years of the time of parliamentary Committees have been spent, what tens of thousands of pounds have gone in expenses, what acres of print have been produced, the smoothness of the passage of the Act of 1921, and of the proceedings under it, is astonishing. How much was due to the new post-war mentality, to the gradual permeation of the public mind with the conviction that, of the transport trade at least, competition is not the life; how much to the forceful personality of Sir Eric Geddes, no one can say. But the story is remarkable, and Mr. Simnett deserves well, not only of his contemporaries, and especially of transport students in other countries, but also of posterity for making it available in authoritative and convenient form. W. M. A.

8.-The British Trade Boards System. By Dorothy Sells, Ph.D. ii + 293 pp. London: P. S. King, 1923. Price I2s. 6d. net.

This volume is No. 70 in the Series of Monographs by writers connected with the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the results of a two years' study of the problem " How has the Trade Boards System developed in Great Britain, and how has it worked'under the test of time and economic chaos ' " Dr. Sells has been very successful in collating the information she has obtained from the minutes and papers of the various Trade Boards, the documents and papers of the Trade Boards Division of the Ministry of Labour, and the records of numerous Employers' Associations and Trade Unions. As a collector of evidence from persons conversant with Trade Board matters in different parts of the country, or, rather, as an exponent of its results, her judgment is not so conspicuous. But, although in her later chapters she shows herself a decided-advocate of the present system, in preference to the methods advocated by the Cave Committee, she gives every proof of having arrived at her position by strictly impartial examination. In such a careful balancing of the pros and cons put forward in the discussions of the 63 Trade Boards in existence in the year 1921, positive conclusions strike the eye of the reader, and sometimes

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1924.] Reviews of Statistical and Economic Books. 463

invite adverse criticism, although of slight importance in relation to the general value of the whole book.

Thus before stating that " Trade Board rates of wages have become the maxima in the textile group of trades " brought under the Trade Boards Act, 1918, it would have been better to study the ranges of wages in these trades in pre-war times. One of the trades in question could not easily have been brought under the Trade Boards Act, 1909, because, although both its maximum and its average wages were very low, its minimum rates were high compared with those of many trades paying much higher wages: in other words, few workers earned above the minimum.

Again, the very valuable statistical chapters, evolved from the present chaos of data relating to wages, show that the following passage is the merest slip of the mind, but a proof reader should have noted it. It is quoted here because it is a perfect example of an error becoming increasingly frequent:-

" If IIs. be taken as the average wage received by females of 21 years in the early months of 1914, it becomes evident that, besides reducing the adult age to 18 years, the Trade Board wage on December 1, 1922, stood I55 per cent. in advance of the Iis. prevailing in 1914, while the cost of living stood at only 8o per cent. above July, 1914. This means that the real wages of adult women had in December, 1922, been increased by approximately 75 per cent. since 1914."

The diagrams showing the level of monthly (unweighted) average Trade Board rates and the Rowntree " poverty line " and " human needs " wage standards are especially interesting. Speaking generally, although each of the statistical arguments is rather weak by itself, collectively they command respect. C. E. C.

9.-Employment, Hours and Earnings in Prosperity and Depression: United States, 1920-22. By Willford I. King. 147 pp. New York: National Bureau of Economric Research, Inc., 1923. Price $3 net.

This volume contains the results of an elaborate survey, conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research for the late President Harding's Conference on Unemployment, into the changes in the volume and conditions of employment in the United States between the beginning of 1920 and the end of the first quarter of 1922. The inquiry was conducted by means of three questionnaires, and the information asked for and the returns obtained cover roughly the following ground.

(1.) The first questionnaire was intended to obtain directly from employees information showing the time they lost through various causes, their hours of work, pay, family income, and income per ammain (a term which is defined as meaning a gross demand for articles of consumption having a total money value equal to that demanded by the average male in the given class at the age when his

VOL. LXXXVII. PART III. 2 I

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