more moderate exponents may grant the sincerity of those who make the claim , but suggest that notions of justice differ so widely that a situation which seems to justify parity in the eyes of one man will justify a differential in the eyes of another . the public services , however , are committed to a different view . since the Priestley commission , the government and the civil service trade unions have been in agreement that the wages and salaries of civil servants should be settled by fair comparison with current remuneration of outside staffs employed on broadly comparable work , taking account of differences in other conditions of service , and the civil service pay research unit has been established to provide the information on which these comparisons should be made . the Pilkington commission , the Guillebaud committee and the Willink commission have since extended fair comparisons of one sort or another to the medical and dental professions , to the railwaymen , and to the police . it is , of course , possible to argue that this use of fair comparisons in the public service is only market forces at one remove . in a service financed out of taxation the normal processes of the market are not available to determine wages . consequently wages in the public service should be settled by comparison with rates in outside occupations where market forces apply . on this view the fair wage means the market rate . this view probably lay behind the original formulation of the fair wages resolution of the House of Commons in 1891 . fair wages were those generally accepted as current . trade unionists , however , agitated for many years for a change which was finally accepted in the revision of 1909 . fair wages were then defined as those commonly recognized by employers and trade societies . this suggests that the fair wage is the wage settled by collective agreement - the acceptable wage . I do not think either of these definitions can be accepted as satisfactory . the first difficulty is that every detailed study of wages in Britain reveals startling variations and inconsistencies for the payment for what is apparently the same job even within a single town or district . thus the market , or collective bargaining , or both , lead to a whole range of rates , any one of which could be fair . if there are grounds for arguing that the public servant should , on grounds of justice , be paid the average of this range of rates , then this average must be the fair wage not only for the civil servant , but also for the workers in comparable outside occupations . those of them who are getting less than the average have , on grounds of equity , a case for an increase to bring them up to that figure . a second difficulty is that we sometimes wish to say that a market rate , or even a rate settled by collective bargaining , is unfair . the wages paid to coal-miners and agricultural workers in the &apos;thirties , for instance , would perhaps have been generally regarded as unfair , but necessary because of the depressed markets for coal exports and for agricultural products . the fact that the wages of coal-miners were settled by collective agreement did not , I suggest , make them appear fair in the eyes of the public . I would also suggest that it is a common view in modern Britain that wages paid in the manufacture of motor vehicles are unfairly high compared with the wages of other workers , although they are settled by collective bargaining . many of those who hold this view , however , might be reluctant to voice it in public . there are therefore grounds for supposing that there is some other way of determining fairness in addition to the higgling of the market , or the process of collective bargaining . the four inquiries which I have mentioned seem to accept this supposition and to suggest that the British public holds to certain common standards whereby it can compare one job with another and decide whether the remuneration is fair or not . the interim report of the Willink commission , for example , argues that the pay of the police should be based on conditions recognized by the police themselves and by the public as fair and reasonable . Treasury evidence to the Priestley commission argued that : &amp;hellip; if a civil servant can be seen to be getting , as near as may be , what citizens of similar attainments are getting for doing similar work in the country at large , that is a situation which will surely be commended as fair by the civil servant himself , by his outside analogue , and by the taxpayer who foots the bill &amp;hellip; . the main difference between the two reports is that the Priestley commission thought that fairness demanded the same rate of pay as for the outside outside analogue , whereas the Willink commission recommended considerably higher rates for the police than for the outside occupations with which they compared them . thus both these reports hold not only that it is possible to say that workers - or at least some grades of workers - are fairly paid , but also that there would be general agreement from all sections of society on what would constitute fair payment . no evidence is given in support , although it would clearly be possible to devise empirical tests to discover whether there are generally accepted standards of fairness . the view is presented as self-evident , or at least as not worth arguing . the questions I wish to pursue , therefore , are : can we accept the methods of these four inquiries as satisfactory and dependable procedures for establishing the just wage ; and , if we can , how wide is the scope of their application ? first , however , it is necessary to set out some information about each of them . the job of the civil service pay research unit is fact-finding . it assists in establishing job comparability by describing the similarity or difference in the duties of the grades with which comparison is being made ; and it discovers the pay and conditions of service that attach to jobs regarded as comparable . armed with this information the two sides of the appropriate Whitley council can negotiate what wage or salary is required by fair comparison , or , if they fail to agree , refer the decision to arbitration . the Guillebaud committee &apos;s terms of reference were wider than this . the committee was instructed to conduct an investigation into the relativity of pay of railway workers with other workers , and to establish the degree of job comparability as well as to discover the rates of pay and other emoluments of the other workers . the committee was also empowered to offer general observations and conclusions along with the ascertained facts . the terms of reference of the Pilkington commission were wider still . they were asked to consider how the remuneration of doctors and dentists compared with that of other professions , and what , in the light of this comparison , their remuneration should be . finally the Willink commission has been given no instructions to make comparisons . they have been asked to consider : the broad principles which should govern the remuneration of the constable , having regard to the nature and extent of police duties and responsibilities and the need to attract and retain an adequate number of recruits with the proper qualifications , and their interim report rejects the principle of fair comparison as inapplicable to the police service . but it goes on to argue that the pay of the constable should be settled by means of a formula which yields almost 70 per cent more than the wage rates in certain selected skilled occupations . this process must be based on a comparison of some kind . the criteria which justify the same remuneration are , however , simpler than those which justify differences in remuneration , and also logically prior to them ; for how could comparisons which reveal differences between jobs be used to justify differences in pay unless comparisons which did not reveal those differences justified the same pay ? we start therefore with the principle of the rate for the job , the principle that the same job should carry the same rate of pay . the Willink commission have , in fact , annexed this phrase to cover another principle , which they call their third principle . they do not state what the principle is , but they say that it relies for its operation very largely on a judgement of the constable &apos;s value to the community . but as I understand it , the phrase has always described the old trade union principle that a fitter must not take less than the fitter &apos;s rate , nor a compositor than the compositor &apos;s rate , as it stands in the district in which he happens to be working . I can see no reason for using it in this novel and imprecise sense . the difficulty is to know when two jobs are the same , or rather , since two jobs are never exactly the same , to know which differences can be regarded as negligible for the purpose of settling payment . the ingenuity of man can create reasons for additional payments out of everything and out of almost nothing - out of slight differences in materials , in tools and machinery , or in the product ; out of differences in the heat , dirt or noise of working conditions ; out of responsibility for men , materials , machinery , or money ; and so on . some reason can always be found for paying X more than Y , and probably also for paying Y more than X . before we write the problem off as insoluble , however , we must remember that men have repeatedly cut their way through it over the centuries , and do so constantly today . the fitter &apos;s rate , or the compositor &apos;s rate , is only meaningful because there is agreement about what is the proper work of a fitter and of a compositor , either by rule or by custom . every grading structure , in public and in private employment , decides that certain differences in work warrant differences in pay , and also that the great majority do not . the process whereby the national coal board reduced something like six thousand daywage job titles to 367 titles , and then grouped these titles into thirteen different wage grades , is but one outstanding example of a common process . such examples show that , in the settlement of salaries and wages , men are willing to neglect many differences between jobs , and also to recognize others as important . they do not , of course , prove that there would be general agreement on what should count and what should not . we can , however , find some evidence on this point . we know , for instance , that many thousands of problems about jobs and about gradings are amicably settled each year . strikes over demarcation disputes or arbitration awards on grading questions only serve to emphasize the wide area of undisputed territory behind them . it is hardly possible that this could be so without widespread agreement on which differences count and which do not . the experience of the Guillebaud committee was that our team of investigators , coming from widely-varied backgrounds and with different industrial experience , agreed closely among themselves , and their opinions corresponded , in most instances , with those of our Secretaries and ourselves . there were no disagreements which could not be settled by discussion . whether differences count or not is at least largely a matter of social convention . only empirical tests could discover whether there are generally accepted conventions , but , until such tests are carried out , I submit that these are grounds for supposing that there are some conventions which are fairly widely accepted . the Priestley commission included amongst their criteria of fairness the educational or other qualifications required . in fact , the civil service pay research unit seems to have concentrated more on work than on qualifications . for the Pilkington and Willink commissions , on the other hand , qualifications seem to take first place . the Pilkington commission was instructed to consider the proper current levels of remuneration of doctors and dentists in the light of a comparison with the remuneration of other professions . the professions on which they based their inquiry were : accountants , actuaries , barristers , solicitors , architects , surveyors , engineers and university teachers , together with a category entitled graduates in industry . 