I. Introductory. The established Australian systems: wages-boards and arbitration courts. — Justice Higgins's decision of 1907 the foundation for subsequent awards, 648. — Inadequacy of his data, 649. — Wage changes after 1914, 650. — II. New South Wales Maintenance of Children Bill of 1919, 652. — Proposes central fund and payments therefrom to mothers on a tapering sliding scale, 654. — Estimated Cost, 661. — The government's defeat leads to failure of the bill, 664. — Labor Ministry's bill of 1921, also not enacted, 664. — III. Report of the Australian Basic Wage Commission of 1919, 665. — Searching Inquiry on Cost of Living, 666. — Report in 1920, stating a basic family wage of £5 16s, 670. — The Report a bombshell; memoranda by Knibbs and Piddington, 671. — No action, except minor changes in wages of public employees, 677. — Piddington's pamphlet of 1921, 677. — Attititude of unionists, 679. — IV. More recent developments. Arbitration courts find they have no power to apply the Commsision's basic wage, 681. — Unionists and Labor Party drifting toward the maintenance-of-children principle, 683.