The presumption which had marked the era of Powers' Presidency—that economic conditions were not conducive to any substantial advance in labour standards—continued after the reconstruction of the Court, though the newly appointed judges had different views of the degree of restraint that the situation required. The available data analysed in Chapter 5, especially those about unemployment, indicate deterioration in the economy in the later years of the decade. Moreover, contemporary comparisons between the productivity of industry in the 1920s and in the pre-war years produced results ranging from actual decline to, at best, a small improvement. As the decade wore on and no decisive improvement emerged, there was little scope for any assumption of continuous improvement of wages and conditions. By the end of 1929, the tepid performance of earlier years was giving way to a foretaste of the crisis to come.

7.1 The basic wage

Although there was no major innovation in the Court's approach to setting the basic wage, there was some important working-out of existing principles.

7.1.1 The standard

Dethridge, in the Glass Workers' case of 1927, dealt with a union attempt to revive the Piddington wage: