LECISLATIOX FOR INDUSTRIAL CLASSES. 549 



Ivestriction, Coloured Eace llestriction, and Immigration Kestriction 

 Acts, the severity of the provisions of which effectively prevents any 

 material competition from such persons. Men are protected at their 

 work through the agency of the Acts relating to Employers' Liability, 

 Coal Iviines liegailation, Factories and Shops, Accidents Compensation, 

 Coal Lumpers' Baskets, Masters and Servants, and Scaffolding and 

 Lifts. They are protected both as to their personal well being and 

 as to their pecuniary interests by the Truck Act, Shearers' Accommo- 

 dation Act, and Butchers' Shop Sunday Closing Act. 



But the great central consideration in this branch of our subject 

 i^ encountered when we regard the successive steps which have been 

 taken during the last twenty years to solve the problem of securing 

 an enlightened method of settling industrial disputes. 



So long as there are two distinct parties, interested from different 

 points of view in monetary concerns, so long will there be a liability 

 t) differences of opinion and to disputes. Li the past there have been 

 two such parties, and they still eixist as employer and employee. But 

 in the early days the emjDloyee was imorganised, and was consequently 

 helpless to seciu'e the discussion of his grievances. As time proceeded 

 and the worker began, to emerge from his individuality by forming- 

 considerable coteries or unions, he was able in his collective capacity 

 to assert his claims more effectively, and developed the crude and in- 

 efficient weapon of the strike, by which he wrought disaster both on 

 himself and on the employer, but with far more deadly effect in his 

 own case. 



The futility of the strike method was soon perceived by the 

 worker, and the disastrous loss occasioned was in eveiy instance 

 realised by both parties. 



The first essential to a peaceful solution of disputes is naturally 

 a conmion plane of discussion, in order clearly to define grievances; 

 and the merit of hearing two sides of a question need scarcely be 

 asserted. 



The need for conferences and arbitrament in disputes gradually 

 forced public opinion to a decision which secured the passage of a 

 tentative measure in 1892 entitled " Trade Disputes Conciliation and 

 Ai'bitration Act," the details of wliich have been given in my analysis. 

 Tlie conceptions in that Act were excellent, but as so much depended 

 on voluntary acceptance of the awards of the Arbitration Tribunal 

 created by the Act, and as awards were enforceable only when the 

 parties agreed beforehand to be bound thereisy, it very naturally 

 happened that the Act remained inoperative for practical results. 

 Nine years of agitation and endeavour passed away before the 

 '■ Lidustrial Arbitration Act of 1901 " was placed on the Statute-book, 

 with the provisions as detailed in my analysis. This measure was 

 reo-arded as purely experimental, and its operation Avas made termin- 

 able on the .30th -June, 1908. 



As the time of expirj^ of the Act approached, the Government 

 introduced a measure in Parliament dealing with industrial disputes 

 in a different manner to that which had been instituted under the Act 

 of 1901. 



