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the wage rates at present paid by the most efficient and up to dɛte firms and on balance the cure may be worse, then the disease.
200. In these circumstances the most careful consideration will must have to be given to any proposal involving the institution of a Trade Board particularly if their award is likely seriously to decrease the volume of employment available in the Colony at a time like the present while the free movement of surplus population into China is restricted and the American embargo is affecting both industry and commerce.
201.
It would, in my view, be extremely undesirable to institute a Trade Board before an adequate staff was available for the effective enforcement of any award it may make.
262. When conditions are more normal and the enamel ware section of the metal industry has adequate supplies of raw materials, I am of the opinion that consideration should be given to the setting up of a Trade Board to cover that section of the industry. While inferior terms and conditions of employment are observed in many of the smallest undert: kings there is no Targe factory I have seen where ɛdult male local workers are paid a flat rate of three dollars a day and Shanghailanders one dollar thirty cents plus food and Lɛccommodation. The industry is a limited one and enforcement
should be practicable. The result of the action will be of much interest and the future use of the ordinance could usefully be based on the result.
253. The whole problem of wage rate determination is one of the most difficult and complicated in the general field of labour policy because there is no clear and accepted principle upon which wage rates can be based except perhaps the dictum that a living wage must be the first charge on any industry.
26. Although I have advocated the continued operation of collective bargaining as the regular method of settling terms and conditions of employment in any industry, I have done so mainly because:
(i) this is what the trade unions have been led to expect, and any chr nge in this policy would be viewed with suspicion by the workers.
265.
(ii) it is only by such a procedure that I think that
sound, well led Trade Unions are likely to be developed at this stage.
Eventually, in most countries in the world, it will be found that some central co-ordinated wage policy will become essential. The ability of workers in certain industries to hold a country to ransom in order to secure wage increases out of line with general levels will have to be countered in some way and free collective bargaining will have to be limited or superseded. At some future date a similar position is likely to arise in Hong Kong. Already the aware of the Arbitration Tribunel on the Dairy brm dispute has thrown wages rates out of their former alignment and there is no doubt that employees of the Dockyard and the Government will, in due course, strive for similar rates.