The minimum wage represents the lower limit of the fair wage and should provide for the preservation of the efficiency of the worker. The capacity to pay is not a relevant factor for the fixation of minimum wages under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

1. The petitioners in O.P. No. 792 of 1965 are the appellants in this writ appeal. They challenged, without success, the validity of Ext. P1, a notification issued by the 1st respondent the State of Kerala under S.3 (1)(b) of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, read with S.5 (2) of the said enactment and published in the Kerala Gazette dated the 16th March, 1965.

2. Ext. P1 divided the State into three separate areas:

(1) Quilon and Feroke area, consisting of Quilon, Trivandrum, Kozhikode and Cannanore Districts,

(2) Alwaye area consisting of Ernakulam, Alleppey and Kottayam Districts, and

(3) Trichur area, consisting of Trichur and Palghat Districts and fixed the minimum wages for each of those areas. The earlier notification the notification that Ext. P1 superseded was dated the 12th May 1958.

3. The minimum wages fixed for the Trichur area are lower than those fixed for the other two areas; and the contention of the appellants is that such a fixation is not warranted by the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. The contention is not that the minimum wages fixed for the areas with which they are concerned are too high. The contention is that the lower rate fixed for the Trichur area loads the scales very much against them as the tile industry is essentially dependent on man power and sells its products in an identical and competitive market. The judgment under appeal sums up their submissions as follows:

"Counsel for the petitioners submitted that there is nothing to show that the needs of the workers in the industry in the Trichur area are less than the needs of the workers in other areas or that the workload in the Trichur area is less than in the other areas, that in similar notifications the Madras and Mysore States did not make any regional classification for the purpose of fixing minimum wages, and that the Kerala Government have not fixed different minimum wages for different areas in the State in respect of other industries, that all the owners of tile factories in Feroke, Quilon and Trichur areas depend practically on the same market for the purpose of the sale of tiles, that 65 per cent of the total tiles are manufactured in the Trichur area and the quality of the tiles manufactured in the Trichur area is as good as those produced elsewhere in the State."

4. The only relevant consideration for the fixing of minimum wages is the minimal requirements of the workers concerned. No other consideration for example, the capacity of the industry to pay the minimum wage arises for consideration.

5. A fair wage is the demand and the destination. Its upper limit is the "living wage". One of the Principles of State Policy the principle embodied in Art.43 of the Constitution directs that the State shall endeavour to secure, by suitable legislation or economic organisation or in any other way, to all workers, agricultural, industrial or otherwise, work, a living wage and conditions of work ensuring a decent standard of life and full enjoyment of leisure and social and cultural opportunities.

6. The minimum wage is the lower limit of the fair wage. It should provide according to the Committee on Fair Wages, "not merely for the bare sustenance of life but for the preservation of the efficiency of the worker by providing for some measure of education, medical requirements and amenities."

Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Adam Smith wrote in his Wealth of Nations:

"The wages paid to journeymen (workers) and servants of every kind must be such as may enable them, one with another, to continue the race of journeymen and servants, according as the increasing, diminishing or stationary demand of the society may happen to require."and David Ricardo in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation:

"The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.

8. The minimum wage, therefore, represents the limit below which the wages shall