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the retail outlets, for there, they either follow custom of their own
convenience. Here you are concerned with production and all that is
involved therein, and such must be kent unon a fairly even cost lane.
To do otherwise keens the labor rot boiling and of course makes for
friction and trouble on the labor side, and can well make for destruc-
tion of a well established industry. Perhaps an answer is to be found
in minimum wages and hours being made similar in all closely related
industries. That at least 'iould eliminate much of the controversy
that takes place in all such cases. In thiF 1ist, one cannot of course
overlook the difficulty involved, and yet so long as an uneven situation
exists, troubles with related industries arise and are magnified and
since you are bound sooner or later to have trouble over these matters
you might just as -ell take the larger dose at the beginning and have
done with it.

3. Wages

 1. 7age Levels; !!inimp, Averae

 Section 1, Article IV, nage 31 of the code states that exceptt as
hereinafter provided no em-oloyee shall be oaid at less than the rate
of thirty-five cents (75t) ner hour."1

 Section 2 of the same article states "that no semi-skilled
emroloyee engaged in cutting, framing, raring, pocketbook making and/or
operating (except lining operating, cementing and/or posting) employed
in the manufacture of any of the products covered by the provisions of
this Code, made of any materials other than imitation leather, shall
be raid at less than the rate of forty-five cents (454,) per hour."

 These are the only two rates of ray provided Pnd since the last
was stayed in the order of arnroval we need only at this noint be
concerned with the first named.
 Exhibit G, rage 1, paragraph 2; page 2, paragraph 2; rage 4,
paragraph 2 of the Mittenthal memo on the industry, gives a picture
of the wage situation obtaining prior to the code.

 Exhibit F gives a statistical break-down of present day distribution
of the industry, disclosed in Code Authority reports.

 If, as claimed by out of town manufacturers, the.large majority
of their employees were not skilled, the effect of the code wage scale
in increasing purchasing rower, must have been very marked, for they
jumped from an average of $6.00 to M8.0O per week, to a minimum of
S14.00 weekly.

 Taking the manufacturers statement in this respect, with a large
grain of salt, my own observation of processes used in out of town
factories, leads me to conclude that a full 501 of those engaged were
definitely affected by this increase, and the classification break-down
included in Exhibit F bears this out.