The Ontario Minimum Wage Bill

Your Lordship, Ladies and Gentlemen,-I assure you it is a proud moment when I stand at my first meeting as President of the Empire Club of Canada. I want to thank you all for the honour you did me just before Christmas in electing me to this honourable position. I am proud to be the President of the Empire Club. (Applause) I have always felt, and I am sure you will agree with me, that Toronto is the most pro-British city on the continent of America. (Applause) That means a great deal, and we Torontonians and we Canadians are ever feeling more proud of being a part of the Empire. Not long ago I had a letter from a friend of mine who is one of the undersecretaries in the government of Britain, and speaking of the Empire and growth of the Empire, particularly in these days, he said that while London, the old home of the government of

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Rev. J. W. MacMillan, B.A. D.D., is professor of Sociology in Victoria College and Chairman of the Ontario Minimum Wage Board established in 1920. He had been Chairman of the Minimum Wage Commission for Manitoba and Chairman of the Manitoba Industrial Conditions Commission.

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the Empire, will always be the heart of Empire, yet in order to make the Empire what it is destined to be there must be other hearts of Empire around the Globe. And then he said that he knew, as the people over there know, that Toronto-particularly Toronto-was considered to be a heart of Empire. Now, we must not arrogate to ourselves in Toronto this business of being the heart of the Empire; but Toronto is the great centre of the Pro-British, pro-Empire spirit which permeates Canada. We have, particularly at this time in 1921, problems which are before the Empire as an Empire. More than anything else just now, we have the problem of unemployment, which involves the problem of the relationship of the worker to the employer. The problem of our industries and of our commercial and trade life is a thing above everything else to which we must turn our attention. That, perhaps more than anything else, is the raison d'etre for our starting on our first meeting this year with the subject of wages, because it lies at the foundation of the problem before us in the reconstruction and the revival of the Empire's business. Today we have been fortunate in getting Dr. MacMillan, Professor of Sociology in the University, to come to us and tell us about the work of the Ontario Minimum Wage Board. As you know, Professor MacMillan is an expert on this subject not only as the problem presents itself today, but he has been giving a great deal of attention to this for years past; and with his very excellent corps, most of whom are here today, with the female members, whom we are very proud indeed to have with us. (Applause) They have arrived at some general conclusions, I hope, at any rate general suggestions, of which they can give us the benefit. I will now call on Professor MacMillan to address you on this subject.

PROF. MACMILLAN

Mr. President, Your Lordship, Members of the Empire Club, Ladies and Gentlemen,-I count it a privilege to be permitted to tell you something of what minimum wage legislation means, and of the purpose and anticipations of the recently-formed Board in the Province of Ontario. I thank you all, not only for myself, but for my associates on that Board, all of whom are present today, for this opportunity, and for the cordial expression which you have just given in, your greeting to us. We hope that we may deserve something of this, and that when we lay our armour off we may dwell as kindly in your memory as we do now in your anticipation.

The principle underneath minimum wage laws is a very simple one. It is the principle of the right to live. Minimum wage laws do not fix wages; they content themselves with drawing a certain line-the minimum wage line-below which wages may not fall. They fix this line, not by enquiry as to the productivity of the labourer or the solvency or profitableness of the business, but in accordance with the needs of human nature-the presumption being that the worker has the right to live from his work. It is owing to the simplicity of this principle, to the convincing, the compelling quality that is in this principle, that minimum wage boards, the world over, have been able to work so harmoniously both with employers and employees, and have generally won the good-will of human society.

If you think of it, it is that same principle that underlies our stringent law against murder; for the essential criminality in murder is not destruction, but psychology. It is not the shedding of blood, the shedding of useful blood; it is the shedding of precious blood, the blood of a human being, the shedding of sacred blood, the blood of the only essentially sacred creature-that can be seen, at least-on earth. I suppose that if I killed somebody I should be hanged; and yet I think I might make the rather specious plea that if it were not for this principle, I might have liberty to assassinate a human being and yet escape. I might select, for instance, some decrepit and invalid and aged person, and I might plead that I had robbed him only of a very few years; yea, that I had but delivered him from the burden of his existence. I might even claim reward rather than penalty for my deed. I might kill a baby; I might kill a willing criminal; but the law would make no distinction. Old or young, rich or poor, useful or useless, good or bad, killing is murder I suppose that if there were a felon in a condemned cell to be hanged tomorrow morning, and I broke my way into that cell and strangled him--in his dreamless sleep, I would stand some chance of taking his place upon the scaffold, though I had but anticipated the sentence of the law by a few hours. That is the meaning of murder-the right to live; a right essential, inherent, supreme, unquestionable-so that any outrage upon that right is a capital offence. The question of accidents, decretals, incidentals, appurtenances upon that is a very trifling question. The question is, did he or did he not kill a human being?

This is the way in which this law applies. There is no compulsion upon any employer to hire any individual person whatever, but the compulsion is that if any employer does employ an individual, takes from that one his or her productive energy, in return for that shall be given at least enough for that person to live on. That is all; and upon that this law is erected; because, you see, the principle applies not only to the earnings of life but the continuing of life. It is unfit that any human being should be voluntarily robbed of life. It is also unfit that any human being possessed of this precious and sacred treasure of human life should live in meanness, in penury, in hardship, in torment, unless these things be perceivably for disciplinary or retaliatory purposes imposed upon that life by the official sentence of organized society. We may except criminals; and yet in the particular in which we are concerned in connection with the minimum wage law we do not. We give the fellow who is going to be hanged this morning his breakfast. Our paupers in the poor-house are supposed to be sufficiently fed, sheltered and clothed. The whole army of dependents and defectives, the insane, the deaf and dumb, the blind and the defective and the incapable, we house these in institutions. We demand that the standard of living in those institutions should be a modest standard indeed, but yet should be the standard of reasonable comfort. And, in the industrial order, society in general makes that same modest demand. Here are these workers organized into industrial groups, industrial families. The demand is made of those that are in control of those industrial families that they shall provide the members of those families with enough to eat, enough to wear, enough to shelter, and a decent and reasonable allowance of wholesome comforts and recreations. As you know very well, there is a controversy in the world today as to whether or not the existing industrial order is an advantage and should be maintained, and the argument for its continued existence is that it does these things measurably well. Its strongest argument is that it has actually succeeded in providing for the needs of human life, whereas it is a questionable matter as to whether any of the proposed alternatives-none of them having been put to the test of experiment-will be even so moderately successful. As it is in Hamlet, "we rather bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of." No man defends our industrial order on the ground that it makes a few men rich. He may defend, and it is often defended, by saying that it is by pursuing that motive that a larger benefit for a larger number is reached; but the obligation is upon the management, the head of each family, that he shall provide for his own.

In the business world there is strong criticism for the man that pays his dividends out of his assets. There will be stronger criticism for the man that pays dividends out of, not financial but vital assets. There is criticism and there is destruction for the business that is financially insolvent, but it is at least possible that a business may be financially solvent but humanly insolvent. Service is the only justification for profit.

There is an old book that some of you may perhaps have read, that says, "if a man will not work, neither shall he eat." It is an excellent principle. It implies the principle of its converse-that if a man will work he shall eat, and shall eat the bread of independence and self-support. Nothing should interfere with the operation of that wise law, whether viewed directly or viewed conversely. And the minimum wage law just says that "if this woman", for it applies only to women in Canada, "if this woman gives you her work, you may give her as much more as you like-we have nothing to do with that-but after she has attained maturity and maintained skill so that you get the full product of her labour, you shall at least give her enough so that she shall have enough to eat and to wear, and have a decent roof over her head, with a few comforts besides." That is the modest, simple and incontrovertible principle of the minimum wage. It works within a limited area-for as you have already seen it is not an attempted solution of the great problem of the industrial order; for instance, it does not touch the question of unemployment; it does not touch the exchange problem; it does not touch any of the greater problems; it confines itself to this one limited area. Men would be at each other's throats if you brought up these other questions; but we find it quite possible to work harmoniously within this area. This is a long speech, and I am a long man (laughter) and the business that I have spent my long life in has somewhat muscularized my capacity for talking and I do not wish to unduly prolong this gathering of the Empire Club. (Go on!) Oh, I intend to say some more; don't think you are going to get away (laughter), I am just wondering what I should say.

Should I attempt to give you some history of the way in which this legislation has developed from the time it was first suggested in New Zealand in 1884-then in Australia, then in Britain, then in the United States, and at last the way it has spread, with variations, through Canada? I think I had better set that to one side. Shall I attempt to tell you a little of the practical experience that I have had as chairman for several years of the first Minimum Wage Board in Canada, that in the Province of Manitoba? Perhaps I might say a little about that. (Hear, hear) In Manitoba, which is now a strongly industrialized province, there are somewhere about 6,000 women in industry outside of domestic service and agriculture. I understand that in Ontario there are 14,000 factories, and each one of them has a certain number of employees. The number of female employees in Ontario I cannot begin to guess, but I surmise that it is a very considerable number indeed. Moreover, the industries in Manitoba are practically hived within the city of Winnipeg, whereas the women-employing industries of Ontario are scattered as far as Ottawa in the east, Windsor in the west, and I do not know how far north; so that the problem here in Ontario is immensely larger than it was in Manitoba. Yet I think the small experience I had in Manitoba does shed some illustrative light upon the problem in Ontario.

We were appointed in Manitoba as this Board is appointed in Ontario; the two acts are somewhat different, but they are in many respects alike. A lady and a gentleman were appointed as representing the employers, and a lady and gentleman were appointed as representating the employees, and we held our first meeting and introduced ourselves to each other, for there had been but the very slightest acquaintance between any two members of that Board. The question came up immediately, in what way shall we proceed?--for the act left it entirely to our own choice. We enquired of some experts in the matter and the advice given to us did not convince us very much at the start. I won't take time to retail it-and our further experience has taken it still further from any possibility of convincing us. We were told, in fact, that .we should act strongly; that that was the essential thing. "Put your notices up in the factories and tell them that if they don't keep this Act they will get into trouble." We did not do that.

First of all we looked at each other, and we felt that we could trust each other. (Laughter) Industrial things got pretty well excited at times. One member of the Board was the leader of the strike in Winnipeg, and the other was recently elected Mayor of Winnipeg; so you see we hadn't any tame cats on that Board. (Laughter) Now, I saw personally an opportunity for great personal aggrandizement. I was myself sitting on the fence, with a leg on either side, and the employers' representatives near my right leg and the employees' representatives near my left. I saw each question coming up, and these two cancelling the votes of the other two, and I doing the whole business of the Board. (Laughter) Wasn't it a magnificent prospect? However, somehow I was not attracted to that prospect. The smaller the man, as you know, the more militaristic he is. (Laughter) It seemed to me, moreover, that each decision from our Board went out with two members of the Board opposed to it. In the one case those two had the artillery of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, with all its wealth and power joined with them; or in the other case they had all the artillery of the Labour Temple with all its power of press and speech and union. So that, however, our legal authority might run, our moral authority might not be very great. We all saw that point, and we decided that if possible we would try and be harmonious in the Board. I presided over I don't know how many meetings of that Board, they lasted for about two years-and I only remember one occasion where I actually had to settle by my casting vote a question where there was a distinct and sharp controversy between the two representatives of capital and the two representatives of labour. (Applause)

We went a little further. Reports came to us, as they are coming to us now, of industries in which the wages are supposedly below the standard of decent living--perhaps not prevailingly so, but to a considerable extent--and we set ourselves to deal with those industries. We made our investigation, and then we sought representatives from the employers' side and from the employees' side to meet with us, and they sat around our long Board table, and we explained to them what this Act meant, and we said to these employers, "Do you believe in this principle?" They said, "Yes" We held some forty of those conferences, and every time we met with a body of employers and explained the principle to them they said, "Yes, we believe in that; we want to do that." We said, "Well, then, let us take the thing up."

Now, in Manitoba, we had authority over working conditions and over hours and over wages. Here in Ontario we have that only over wages, and as I said, not wages, but the minimum line below which wages may not be allowed to fall. So we went over those items one by one, and we said, "Now, we would like to do what is reasonable and fair, what will help business if possible, and at the same time carry out this principle of the minimum wage for the worker." So we dealt plainly with those points one by one. We said: "The responsibility is on the Board; if necessary we will go ahead and do this thing, make it law and enforce it, but we would much rather have your approval and agreement."

Gentlemen, in those forty conferences I remember only one or two occasions-and there it was in regard to some less important matter-in which objection was made either on the side of the employer or the employee. We managed to reach agreements, and we found ourselves supported by the sympathy, accord, and business knowledge and ability of the employers of Manitoba; and I look forward with confidence to the operation of the Minimum Wage Board in Ontario with every expectation that we shall receive the same sympathy and support. (Applause)

There are some reasons why I am able to indulge that confident expectation I read the Factory Act of Ontario, and I find that there is nothing in the law to prevent an employer of labour in Ontario demanding 60 hours per week work from his employees; yet I find that the more general week is 48 hours; yea, that not an uncommon week is 44 hours. Now, that argues well for the manufacturers as a class; and other indications there are of the same sort-the way in which the organized body of manufacturers of this Province has so far regarded the enactment of this legislation; so that we believe they intend to give us a fair show in the carrying of this law into effect.

There are just one or two matters which I see raised now and again by way of objection, which you might like me to deal with briefly. One is that the minimum wage becomes a maximum, that when it represents those that are low it depresses those that are high, so that the gain of the low-paid woman is the loss of the high-paid woman. I want to argue that on a theoretical basis, but I wish to tell you this fact-that in over thirty years operation of the Minimum Wage Acts in the antipodes, Great Britain, and the United States and Canada, that has never been found to be the case. Women's wages do not follow the same plan as men's wages, largely no doubt because men are so much organized and women are so little organized. In collective bargaining the minimum wage is commonly the maximum wage, but in carrying 'out the Minimum Wage Board regulations it has not been found so. The tendency rather is that in lifting the wage scale from the bottom it is lifted more or less all the way up, through not lifted in the same degree, at the same time that it is lifted above. That is the fact, and what has happened in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Manitoba and Massachusetts, U. S. A., is not likely to be contradicted by experience in Ontario.

Another objection, and one that probably deals more with the body of gentlemen who are listening to me today, is the peril of inter-provincial competition. Where-ever you go, if you go to some place where lower wages are paid and if the wages that are paid here are made still higher, then we will be unable, they say, to meet the competition from those other Provinces where an extremely low wage is paid. Gentlemen, that is an ancient objection which has been produced whenever any social or factory legislation whatever was suggested-the Workmen's Compensation, and all those Acts that trail away back to the middle of the 19th Century for shortening the hours of labour, improving working conditions, limiting the ages of child labour, women labour, night labour; every one of those has had to meet that objection. Those laws have been imposed; hours have been shortened; conditions have been made better and more extensive; these things have been done again, and that forboding has not been vindicated; industry has steadily improved in the places where the conditions have been improved.

I want to mention one or two other things. I have said that women's wages do not follow the same law as men's wages. They do not follow the same law as men's wages in regard to standardization. You talk as if there was one prevailing woman's wage for Ontario and another for Quebec, another for the Maritime Provinces, and another for Manitoba. There is no such thing. There is no standard woman's wage for this City of Toronto. You know your own businesses, but you don't know the wages your neighbour is paying. But where returns are gathered, as they are necessarily gathered for such purposes as our Minimum Wage Board is devoted to, it is shown that there will be two factories buying material in the same market and selling their products in the same market, so that you cannot tell one from the other from anything you can observe; yet you will find the wage set in one, ten, twenty or thirty percent perhaps, below or above that of the other. I have not yet seen wage sheets, in Toronto, and I expect to see them soon, but I have no doubt that that is the condition of affairs in Toronto and in the Province of Ontario. It is no exception to the condition that reigns throughout the rest of the world that is organized in industry. The comparison between one province and another is a comparison that cannot be satisfactorily made. There may, indeed, be some trifling differences, but the difference will not be very much more than that between one factory and another; and the surprising thing is that very generally a factory that pays the highest wages is the factory that makes the biggest profit.

Another thing is this, that the proportion of the cost of any product that goes to wages is much less than many people suppose. In the census of manufacturers for the Dominion of Canada for the year 1917 the proportion that went to wages-not wages and salaries, but wages-was somewhere around fifteen to sixteen per cent. The very careful survey made' in New York City some years ago showed that the proportion ran all the way from four per cent. up to fifty per cent. In the sugar refining it was about four per cent.; in making steel sleeping cars it was about fifty per cent., but most ran around twelve, seventeen, or up to twenty-five per cent. Now, what does that mean? That if you increase wages ten per cent. when wages were one-fifth of the cost of production, you only increase the cost of production by two per cent. That is a very important thing; and it was found, and is in the published report of the investigating commission of the State of New York, that at that time the girls working in the candy factories in New York State for instance, were getting an average wage of $5.82. Now, suppose that wage had been increased so that they had received a minimum wage of $8.00-which was thought a fair minimum a few years ago in New York State not from the average to an average, or from the minimum to a minimum, but from the average to a minimum-the increase of well over $2.00 a week on the average wage-how much do you suppose it would have necessarily added to the price of candy? Not one half cent a pound. That is perhaps a stronger illustration than many that might be advanced, but that is really and essentially the situation; and it is quite possible to increase wages within a reasonable limit without making any very considerable increase in the necessary cost of the product. I recognize I have many men before me that are experts in cost accounting, but the public generally are not cognizant of the fact mentioned.

But now, Gentlemen, I must close, with much regret, for it is a great pleasure to have as attentive a gathering as there is here today, and a gathering that is evidently much interested in this subject, which is of course one of very great importance to us now that we are on the threshold of our activity as representating the authority of the people of the Province of Ontario. I recognize that this gathering today is a gathering rather of the employers than of the employees. I have spoken on this subject in the Labor Temple in this city, and may perhaps speak there again. I told them, and will tell them, the same story I told here, but the appeal that follows the story is evidently a little different. Among the employers there is, as there is to be found in any class of human beings whatever, a certain small number that are of an unworthy type-sweater employers you might call them, shyster employers-men that will take the last, and more too, out of their workers, men that do not think of the human side, men to whom wages in their balance sheet has no more significance than insurance, men that care nothing for their employees except to get all they can from them and return to them as little as possible. Now, may I point out to you that minimum wage laws are a great protection for the better-class employer against unfair competition from the shyster employer? and on that rather low ground-that ground of self-interest--I make a confident appeal for the support of the better class of employers throughout this province. But I should rest it more strongly on the more generous human ground of the common right to live, and of the worker's right to live from her work. (Loud applause)

PRES. MITCHELL: I am sure we are very much indebted to Prof. MacMillan for his most excellent address on this most interesting subject, and I am sure that we owe him our cordial thanks for coming here today and speaking as he has done.