Living wages

The evidence being given at the Industrial Court which is inquiring into the Dockers’ claim for a higher wage, and which, of course, is perfectly in order seeing that we, the workers, have been told so often by Lloyd George and his satellites that we were to have a “new world” on the cessation of hostilities, is exceedingly interesting. Take the following, for instance:

“Mr. Bevin asked what, assuming a docker worked . 44 hours a week, would be his present rate of earnings in Liverpool.
Witness (Sir Alfred Booth): £3 4s. 6d.
Do you really suggest that is a living wage?—Yes.
Could you maintain your family upon it?—No, I could not.
Is it right to ask a man to maintain himself on what yon would not dream of maintaining yourself on?— It is not a question of what I ask him to live upon, but what economic conditions allow’”—Daily News, February 13th, 1920.

(From “By the Way”, SOCIALIST STANDARD, March 1920)