Emil Lederer · 1912
Emil Lederer’s 1912 review examines Broda’s comparative account of statutory wage-setting and industrial arbitration in England, Australia, and Canada, with discussion also of New Zealand. Its central concern is the relationship between legal regulation and workers’ capacity to improve employment conditions. Lederer recognizes the practical value of these institutions while questioning whether they can replace organized labour and class conflict.
The argument begins with homeworking, where Broda regards workers’ inability to organize as grounds for compulsory wage regulation. The weakness of Germany’s advisory arrangements makes the distinction between consultation and enforceable standards decisive:
Die im deutschen Heimarbeitsgesetz vorgesehenen Fachausschüsse hält er nicht für eine glückliche Lösung des Problems, da sie keinerlei Zwangsgewalt besitzen.
English translation: He does not regard the trade committees provided for in the German Home Work Act as a happy solution of the problem, since they possess no coercive power whatever.
Such committees can prepare the way for stronger regulation, but cannot themselves compel improvements. The Victorian experience offers a more substantial institutional model: wage boards initially addressed trades dominated by homeworking and subsequently extended into other industries. Their favourable results in homeworking depended on a particular alignment of economic interests and public support:
Denn in der Heimarbeit wirkte anscheinend auch das Interesse der «guten Unternehmer» gegenüber der Schmutzkonkurrenz und die öffentliche Meinung sehr zu Gunsten der Lohnämter.
English translation: For in home work the interest of the "good employers" as against unfair undercutting competition, and public opinion as well, apparently likewise worked very much in favour of the wages boards.
This explanation qualifies any assumption that statutory authority alone accounts for successful regulation. Reputable employers benefited from restraints on undercutting, while public opinion strengthened the boards’ position. Their extension into industry encountered greater resistance. Restrictions introduced in 1904 limited newer boards to setting wages already paid by “good firms,” leaving further improvements dependent on workers’ activity. Regulation could generalize gains won in parts of the labour market and facilitate subsequent demands, but it did not independently overcome the conditions under which those gains were achieved.
The review then considers English wage boards as a model especially relevant to homeworking and female factory labour. It also summarizes voluntary Canadian and compulsory New Zealand arbitration, which Broda presents as capable of extending from essential services into industry more broadly. His preference for wage boards rests on their direct regulation of employment conditions, whereas arbitration courts intervene after disputes arise and cannot reliably prevent strikes or lockouts.
Lederer’s concluding reservation concerns the political expectations attached to these institutional reforms. Broda anticipates that regulatory bodies will displace class struggle with peaceful development. Lederer leaves open whether syndicalism has as little prospect as Broda supposes, and whether enlightened understanding can prevail over the representation of interests. The review thus distinguishes the usefulness of statutory wage regulation from the stronger claim that it can dissolve social antagonism. Its qualified endorsement treats public institutions as means of extending and stabilizing improvements, without assuming that they make collective action unnecessary.
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