Farm and Factory 153 



The broad principles of Australian industrial 

 legislation for the details vary in the different 

 states are extremely favourable to the worker. 

 Short hours are secured by the provision of an 

 eight-hour day in workshops and factories, and 

 by Acts insisting on the early closing of shops, 

 and the observance of a weekly half-holiday. 

 The rate of wages is maintained either by a 

 Factories Act, which provides for the establish- 

 ment of Boards to fix a minimum wage for each 

 class of labour, or of Arbitration and Conciliation 

 Acts, designed to settle disputes between Capital 

 and I/abour. An instance of the working of the 

 Arbitration Act in force in New South Wales may 

 be of interest. The men engaged in the coal 

 mines at Newcastle and in the neighbourhood of 

 that city, some four thousand in number, had a 

 difference with the mine-owners on the subject of 

 the rates for hewing coal. By common consent, 

 the dispute was referred to the Arbitration Court, 

 and, in this case, the decision of the Court was 

 favourable to the masters rather than the men. 

 Most of the men went on with their work without 

 interruption, but in one mine, it was decided to 

 defy the Court and cease work. The mine- owner 

 then appealed to the Court to enforce its decision, 

 and found that it was powerless to do so, although 

 the owner might have been heavily fined had he 

 refused to obey the ruling given. Proceedings 

 to punish the men were then taken in another 

 Court, but in the meantime, chilled by the open 



