Minimum Wage

Such an amount as efficiency of the worker. The wage board for the fixing of legal minimum rates was originated in Victoria in 1896 and they have since been adopted In England and Massachusetts. Several other states, especially Minnesota and Wisconsin, have considered their adoption. A constitutional amendment authorizing minimum wage legislation was adopted in Ohio. The English law enacted in 1909 was designed primarily to destroy “sweating" in industries carried on In the workers’ homes. It is carried out through the medium of trade or wage boards. The boards fix the wages, and appeals may be taken from the trade boards to the board of trade. In 1912 the law, which had previously related to sweated home industry, was extended to the mining industry. There has been strong opposition to such laws on constitutional grounds, because of the restriction in the 14th amendment and the doctrine of freedom of contract. In Massachusetts in 1911 a commission' was appointed to establish a minimum wage board for the fixing of wages for women and children in any occupation in which the wages paid to a considerable number of workers is believed to be inadequate to maintain an American standard of living.