SETTLEMENT OF INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES. 497 



that, if other men can be found who are wilHng to work at the 

 prescribed conditions, such should not be molested ; that is all the 

 community can reasonably ask. 



New South Wales. — ^The earlier " Conciliation " Acts of 1892 

 and 1899 served little other purpose than to prove the complete 

 futility of the purely voluntary principle. The machinery was 

 rarely used, and proved quite inefficacious in the prevention of 

 strikes. 



In 1901 this State had the opportunity of choosing between 

 the Arbitration Court methods of New Zealand (1894) aid the 

 Wages Board system of Victoria (1896). The New Zealand expe- 

 rience up to that point had been fairly successful in preventing 

 strikes, chiefly because an era of increasing prosperity was in 

 progress, and awards were as a rule favourable to the men. Un-. 

 fortunately, Mr. B. R. Wise chose the New Zealand model, and 

 proclaimed far and wide the abolition of strikes in New South 

 Wales as the necessary outcoTie of his Act. Rarely have pre- 

 dictions been more completely falsified by the event. 



Under the N.S.W. Arbitration Act of December, 1901, the 

 Court President was to be a Supreme Court Judge, assisted by 

 two lay members — one representing all employers, the other all 

 employees. These three non-experts were to hear all the cases, 

 affecting a multitude of trades, some highly technical and intricate, 

 and they were to determine the conditions, hours, wages, appren- 

 tices, lower scales of pay for slow and infirm workers, and the 

 rest. Breaches were enforceable by fine and, if necessary, imprison- 

 ment. Preference to unionists, as between unionists and non- 

 unionists offering together, might be granted, " other things being 

 equal." Also, the Court had power to make a common rule. 



In practice the Act broke down hopelessly. The one non- 

 expert Court was unable to keep up with the pressure of cases 

 waiting adjudication. It laboured at its accumulating duties with 

 the futile doggedness of a child trying to push the advancing 

 tide out of its sand castle on the beach. The employer obeyed the 

 awards, and had no choice, because his assets were attachable. 

 Not so the men wherever an adverse decision affected considerable 

 numbers. They " struck " if it suited them, and snapped their 

 fingers at the law. In the Teralba strike the Attorney-General 

 admitted the men had " made a laughing-stock of the Act," As 

 a measure designed for the satisfactory settlement of disputes it 

 was a peculiarly complete failure. Delays were interminable and 

 the hearings costly. The presentation of each side's " case " by 

 legal men, in the form of addresses and of evidence extracted from 

 witnesses on oath (often exaggerated in order to impress the non- 

 expert Court), not only tended to lengthen the proceedings, but 

 also engendered a needless amount of bitterness between the 

 parties. The Act created rather than settled industrial disputes, 

 for the men in many cases invoked the Court on the chance of 

 what they might get, rather than to seek redress of legitimate 



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