theories, but the objection takes insufficient account of the facility
with which changes can be effected in the absence of a strong force of
traditional conservatism. I must admit, as a failing of Australasian
politicians, that they are inclined to welcome innovations which are
superficially attractive, without due consideration of the ulterior
consequences. To quote an extreme case, the Government of New Zealand
proposed, in a Single Bill, not only to abolish the life tenure of
Members of the Legislative Council, but to provide machinery for the
settlement of disputes between the two Houses and to establish a
modified form of the Swiss Referendum. But I am confident that several
of the proposals to which I have referred, notably that for an Elective
Executive, meet with a large measure of support in the constituencies.
This movement has gathered strength from the disinclination of
Ministries to resign except upon a {278} direct vote of want of
confidence. Some of them look with equanimity upon the defeat of
cardinal principles of important Bills, whether it be due to the
strength of the Opposition or the defection of their own followers, and
do not hesitate, if sufficient pressure be exercised, to withdraw them
altogether. As the Ministry tends, therefore, to become a body which
carries out the wishes of the whole House, and ceases to lead its own
Party, the position would be simplified if the whole House elected the
Executive for a fixed period. Another argument is found in the
increasing desire of the Assembly to shift its legislative duties to
the shoulders of the Executive. Parliament decides the broad
principles of measures and leaves the details to be filled in by
Regulations made by the Department concerned under the supervision of
the Minister and with the approval of the Executive Council.
(2) Graduated death duties are imposed in all the seven Provinces,
though in Tasmania the tax levied on the largest properties does not
exceed 3 per cent. Western Australia came into line with the other
Provinces in 1895, when a Bill imposing graduation up to 10 per cent.
was passed, almost without discussion, through both Houses of
Parliament. The Premier admitted that it had not been rendered
necessary by the condition of the finances, but contended that it
should be placed upon the Statute Book while there were few rich men in
the community who would resent it.
{279}
Other forms of direct taxation are as follows: New Zealand, South
Australia, and New South Wales have taxation on incomes and land
values, the two former with, the latter without, graduation; Victoria
has a graduated income tax and an ungraduated land tax on estates above
a certain value; Tasmania, an ungraduated tax on incomes and the
capital value of land; Queensland, an ungraduated income tax, which is
only collected on dividends paid by public companies. The taxation in
New South Wales, Victoria, New Zealand, and South Australia has been
promoted, if not inspired, by the Labour Movement in Parliament, and
constitutes its greatest triumph. In Victoria the taxation of land
values was rejected by the Legislative Council.
A point of interest is the distinction made by Victoria, Tasmania, and
South Australia between incomes derived from property and those which
are the result of personal exertion. It is thought to be equitable
that the former should be taxed at a higher rate, and the principle is
similar to that which dictates the taxation of land upon its unimproved
value.
(3) I have referred very briefly in the present chapter to certain
forms of industrial legislation; speaking generally, they are based
upon English examples and do not call for any particular comment. The
Labour Parties are keenly interested in these matters because it is
simpler, apart from greater efficacy, that inspectors should protect
their {280} interest under Acts of Parliament than that they should be
compelled constantly to engage in negotiations with individual
employers.
(4) As I have already pointed out, the consideration of Australasian
problems must be accompanied by a recollection of the difference of
conditions from those existing in Great Britain. Even in the latter
country it is obvious that the intimate relations between employers and
employed are being replaced, especially in the manufacturing centres,
by a purely monetary bond; but they can never, except in individual
cases, have had any existence in Australasia, where capitalists and
workmen have approached each other and entered into agreements as
strangers. Consequently the workmen, attached neither to people nor
places, have been prepared to move as their varying interests have
suggested and have formed few lasting ties with their employers. Many
of the industries, indeed, have tended to accentuate this absence of
cordial relations: in pastoralism, for instance, the small permanent
staff is supplemented for a few weeks in the year by a large number of
shearers and others, who sign a definite agreement with their
employers, and, provided that the conditions are carried out, can have
no interest either in them or in their properties. Incidentally, an
association recently formed at Sydney which engages shearers and
provides them with consecutive employment at different sheds, should
not only be a financial success, but allay the {281} natural
dissatisfaction of a body of men who, though they earn high wages, can
depend upon neither regularity nor permanency in their work. I could
show that similar conditions prevail in the sugar industry and, to some
extent, in agriculture; but enough has been said to prove that the
working classes are differently situated from those in older countries
and partially to explain their willingness to form themselves into
Trades Unions and the combativeness of these organisations.
The great maritime strike, though it has been followed by the Broken
Hill strikes of 1891 and 1892, the shearers' strikes of 1891 and 1894,
and periodical hostilities at Newcastle, has modified largely the
attitude of the working classes in regard to the efficacy of industrial
warfare. The later struggles have principally affected Queensland and
New South Wales, which was the first of the Provinces to attempt to
deal with the matter by Act of Parliament. A Board of Conciliation was
established upon the recommendation of a Royal Commission, but is
admitted to have been a failure in the absence of any compulsory
reference of disputes. On the occasion of the most recent
disturbances, at Newcastle in 1896, which originated upon an
application of the miners for higher wages, the Premier, following
English precedents, intervened, and was enabled to settle the dispute,
though not until the strike had lasted for three months and had caused
much of the foreign trade to be diverted to foreign ports. Actual
{282} and prospective losses caused the owners, though they made a
small concession at the request of the Premier, to refuse to reinstate
the miners except at a slightly lower rate of wages than that against
which they had struck. The offer, as modified by the Premier, was
accepted by the miners, who had thus, at the cost of much misery,
brought about a reduction in their wages. The disturbances of 1894 in
Queensland, which reached an acute stage, were met by the Government by
resolute administration under special powers obtained by Act of
Parliament, but no attempt was made to intervene between the disputants
or to make use of the Conciliation Act of 1892, which, as far as I
know, has remained a dead letter. It is useless, therefore, to discuss
the Act further than to say that its machinery can only be set in
motion by a Local Authority, but it may not be unfair to attribute the
unsympathetic attitude of the Government to the bitterness engendered
by the extravagances of the Labour Party.
In most of the Provinces neither the employers nor the workmen are
prepared, as yet, to bind themselves to refer their disputes to an
impartial tribunal and to abide by its decision. Though the tendency
in that direction is on the increase, it has been suggested that, in
the meanwhile, Boards should be constituted which would be empowered to
consider disputes, and, after the examination of books and witnesses,
to issue a public report. The judgment would not be enforceable, but
might be expected, in {283} the majority of cases, to lead to a
settlement of the difficulty; at any rate, it would influence public
opinion, which is a large factor in all industrial struggles. But
South Australia and New Zealand have passed this stage, and have placed
drastic measures on their Statute Book which provide, in certain cases,
for compulsory awards. The compulsory provisions of the South
Australian Act apply only to employers and workmen who are organised
and have voluntarily accepted them by the process of registration.
Should they become involved in an industrial dispute, the Governor may,
upon the recommendation of the President of the State Board of
Conciliation, cause the matter to be referred to it, and the Board may
make an award which will be binding upon the parties concerned. In New
Zealand, on the other hand, while the proceedings must be initiated by
employers or workmen who are registered, the other party, though
unregistered, may be called upon, should the Board of Conciliation fail
to effect a settlement, to attend before the Court of Arbitration and
to obey its award, subject to the general proviso that an employer may
suspend or discontinue any industry and an employe cease from working
therein. In neither Province is a strike or lock-out permitted during
the deliberations of the tribunal.
The Acts do not apply to unorganised workers, except indirectly, partly
because they have not been the cause of the great industrial struggles
of the past, {284} partly because it would be difficult, if not
impossible, to enforce awards against them. It may also have been
thought that they would be encouraged thereby to form themselves into
Unions, and that the best chance of industrial peace lies in
negotiations between responsible bodies of workers and employers who
will have too much at stake to be willing to proceed thoughtlessly to
extremities. As regards registration, it has been found that the
workers of South Australia, though their leaders had supported the
compulsory provisions, have been backward in this direction; but that,
in New Zealand, no such hesitation has been displayed. The workers in
that country do not appear to share the disinclination to agree to the
intervention of an arbitrator which is stated to be increasing in Great
Britain.
In South Australia, to give a brief account of the new tribunals,
Boards of Conciliation may be either Private Boards, constituted under
industrial agreements and endowed with such jurisdiction as may be
confided to them in the agreements; or Public Boards, which include
Local Boards constituted for particular localities and particular
industries, and the State Board of Conciliation. In New Zealand, the
first reference is to an elective Board of Conciliation constituted for
the district in which the dispute has occurred. Should it fail to
effect a settlement, the matter may be referred to the Court of
Arbitration, which, similarly with the State Board {285} of
Conciliation in South Australia, consists of an equal number of
representatives of employers and employed and a chairman nominated by
the Government, who must, in the former country, be a judge of the
Supreme Court. These tribunals are invested with full powers to
require the attendance and examination of witnesses, and may either
make an award which shall take effect for a period not exceeding two
years, and may be enforced by legal process against associations and
individuals, or they may confine themselves, at their discretion, to a
recommendation which will be merely a direction to the parties
concerned.
In South Australia the State Board has also the power to inquire into,
and report upon, industrial disputes, though the parties be not
registered. This portion of the Act has alone been brought into
operation, and that unsuccessfully, as, though the representatives of
employers and employed on the Board arrived at a unanimous decision
upon a dispute affecting the rate of wages, the employer in question
refused to be guided by its judgment. The general failure of the Act,
though the affirmation of the principle of Conciliation has been
valuable, has been due partly to the absence of serious disputes in
South Australia, but principally to the unwillingness both of employers
and employed to place themselves in a position in which they will lose
control over the terms of employment.
The Act passed by the Government of New {286} Zealand, on the contrary,
has hitherto been entirely efficacious, and has prevented the
interruption of harmonious relations between employers and employed.
It was first tested upon a dispute which arose over the action of the
Consolidated Goldfields Company in reducing wages in the mines from
10s. to 8s. 4d. per day. The men, who were not members of a union,
went out on strike, and were then offered wages at the rate of 9s.
Upon the advice of their leaders, the men accepted the offer
provisionally; and, having formed themselves into a union which they
promptly caused to be registered, referred the matter to the Board of
Conciliation. The decision of the Board, which it is unnecessary to
specify, was refused by the men, who appealed to the Court of
Arbitration. The award of the latter body, which fixed the wages of
miners at 9s. 6d. per day, a rate smaller than that which had been
received by the men, but larger than that against which they had
protested, has been observed loyally by the Company and its employes.
The next dispute arose at Christchurch upon the expiration of the
agreement which had been in operation between the boot manufacturers
and their workmen for several years, and upon the desire of the former
to substitute new terms which were regarded as distasteful. It was
concerned with several matters of detail, but hinged principally upon
the question whether non-unionists should be allowed to work with
unionists. As in the {287} former case, an appeal was made from the
Board of Conciliation's award to the Court of Arbitration, whose
decision, it is noteworthy, both sides had signified their willingness
to accept. The award applied to all the bootmakers in the Province
with the exception of three or four who were not identified with the
boot manufacturers' association, and was accompanied by remarks
pronounced, it must be remembered, by a judge of the Supreme Court,
which cannot fail to be of interest to the Trades Unionists in all
parts of the world. I do not, therefore, apologise for quoting them at
length:--
"The Arbitration Court has not hitherto been in the habit of giving
reasons for its decision. It appears to the Court that, sitting as
arbitrators, it should as a general rule follow the ordinary practice
of arbitrators and simply give its decision without reasons. In the
present case, however, so far as I myself am concerned, I think it is
desirable that I should, with respect to part of the award, give some
indications of the reasons which have induced the Court to arrive at
its conclusion. The part of the award to which I refer is that which
relates to clauses 1 and 2 of the general rules which the
Manufacturers' Association has submitted to the Court: '1. (_a_) It is
the individual right of the employer to decide whom he shall employ or
dismiss. (_b_) It is the individual right of the workman to accept or
refuse work from any employer. {288} 2. Employers or employes, either
individually or through any organisation, shall not discriminate for or
against any person because he is or is not a member of any
organisation, neither shall there be any distinction between organised
or non-organised labour; both shall work under the same conditions and
receive equal pay for equal work.' The Bootmakers' Union, in
opposition to the rules so suggested, put forward the contention that
employment should be limited to members of the Bootmakers' Union. The
Court, however, is not able to accept the extreme view which has been
put forward by the Bootmakers' Union. If it were accepted it might
follow that an employer, who had work to do and who could not get Union
men to do it, might have to bring his operations to a standstill. The
effect of it also would be that non-Union men would be absolutely
prevented from earning their living in the workshops of the members of
the Manufacturers' Association. That, so far as I am concerned, seems
to be going beyond what the Court ought to decree. On the other hand,
however, I am not prepared to accept absolutely clauses 1 and 2 in the
form in which the Manufacturers' Association has put them forward. The
Court ought, I think, to comply with the intention of the Legislature
as evidenced in the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation and
Arbitration Act, and ought not to do anything which is calculated to
destroy or weaken any industrial organisation. The {289} intention of
the Act is indicated in its title--the Act is an Act to encourage the
formation of Industrial Unions and Associations. The Court, therefore,
ought not to do anything which will tend to destroy or weaken an
industrial association, or interfere with the manifest intention of the
Legislature as disclosed by the Act. We have this also, that for the
last three years the shops of the Manufacturers' Association have been
practically working as Union shops. It is true that manufacturers
say--probably with truth--that they were so worked because they could
not help it, but the fact remains that they have been working in that
way, and the proposed new rules, as put forward by the manufacturers,
expressly reverse the previous mode of working. We have this also,
that the previous statement was a statement agreed to between the
Manufacturers' Association and the Bootmakers' Union, the conference
which followed the statement was between the Association and the Union,
and the dispute now before the Court is between the Association and the
Union. It is only by means of Unions that labour can take advantage of
the Act. Under these circumstances, it seems to me not unreasonable
that the Union should stipulate for special privileges to its members.
The Union are fighting the battle, and it is fair that they should say
that the results of the victory, so far as it is a victory, and has any
beneficial results, should accrue to them, at any rate in the first
instance. They fight {290} the battle for their members, and not for
the sake of outside labour. Under these circumstances it appears to me
that it is quite reasonable that the members of the Union should have
preference in employment; that members of the Union who are competent
should not have to wait about while non-members of the Union are
employed in the shops of the Boot Manufacturers' Association. The
Court, therefore, has modified Rules 1 and 2 in this direction. I need
hardly say that each case to be decided under this Act must depend on
the particular circumstances attaching to it; that no one case can be
treated as a precedent to any future case, and that because under the
particular circumstances of a particular case, this Court has decided
as it has decided, that is no reason why, under different or varying
circumstances, a similar decision ought to be come to. The Court in
coming to its decision, takes into consideration not general principles
so much as the special circumstances of each particular case."
The award, which modified the regulations on the lines laid down by the
Court, is regarded as a great triumph by Trade Unionists, who are, not
unnaturally, inclined to apply it as a precedent to all organised
trades.
A possible exemplification of the efficacy of the Act occurred at the
end of 1896, when the engineers employed in the Australian trade of the
Union Steamship Company of New Zealand asked that {291} their wages
might be raised to the rate which had prevailed before the financial
troubles. They took advantage of the increased traffic caused by the
holidays in order to emphasise their demands. The engineers of the
ships plying in New Zealand waters made a similar request, which was at
once acceded to by the Company, but did not attempt to exert undue
pressure. I am not prepared to state that the difference in attitude
was due to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act of the latter country,
but the coincidence is calculated to encourage that belief. The
Managing Director of the Company (Mr. James Mills) told me that he was
a hearty supporter of compulsion, not so much because he believed in
arbitration, as because a strike or lock-out was obviated, and the
parties to a dispute, often trivial at the outset, were brought
together before they had been embittered by mutual recriminations. Mr.
Kingston, the Premier of South Australia, and the principal promoter of
the South Australian Act, has written in a similar strain:--
"Conciliation Boards should be established in anticipation of the
differences they are designed to prevent. On the occasion of a great
strike, the public cries out for conciliation. Suggestions are
received from all quarters recommending Conferences and Arbitration;
but when war has been declared, and the disputants, as it were, are at
each other's throats, each hopeful of ultimate success, they are seldom
in the mood to listen to peacemakers. If either party fears the result
of the {292} contest, it may favour pacific counsels. There is,
however, a vehement probability that the stronger party will reject all
overtures and insist on an unconditional surrender and all the
advantages which victory can command. The dispute is then determined,
not on its merits, but by sheer strength. The vanquished, smarting
under a sense of defeat and injustice, capitulate only with the view to
the early renewal of the struggle under more favourable
circumstances."[11]
(5) A large proportion of the workmen of Australasia are convinced
believers in Protection in the widest sense of the word. As far as
their opinion can be ascertained from the representation of Labour in
Parliament, it is unanimous in Victoria, South Australia, and New
Zealand. In New South Wales, as has been seen, the Labour Members
have, for the sake of solidarity, sunk the fiscal issue; but the
majority are Protectionists, and have proposed that the question of the
tariff should be settled for a fixed period by a plebiscite. Thereby
they believe that they will secure Protection and continue to be
unfettered in their support of the more advanced party. In Queensland,
also, the Labour programme states that the fiscal issue is not to be
regarded as a party question.
Protection, the Labour Members admit, raises prices to the consumer;
but they contend that, if prices are high, employers can afford to pay
high {293} wages, and that the strength of Trades Unionism should be
sufficient to enforce them. To put their argument, such as it is, in a
nutshell, it is better to have high prices and high wages than low
prices combined with low wages and uncertain employment. Then, as
combination is expected to keep wages at a high point, it is obvious
that it can be exercised most effectually over a small area, and we
find the South Australian Labour Members voting against a resolution in
favour of inter-provincial Free Trade, and Labour Members generally
imbued with an actual, if not avowed, opposition to Federation, the
first result of which would, it is believed, be the removal of fiscal
barriers. They profess, indeed, a desire for Federation on a
democratic basis, but are, as far as their material interests are
concerned, under the influence of a patriotism which is intensely
provincial and does not take account of national, much less of
imperial, considerations.
If he lives under a protective tariff, the workman asks himself of what
use is it to exclude the products of cheap labour if the cheap labourer
be allowed to enter the country and compete with him on the spot. The
agitation against Asiatic immigrants has, I am prepared to admit, a
wider basis, and rests largely upon physical repugnance and the fear
that they might enter in such large numbers as to swamp the white
population. To that extent it appeals to the Free Traders of New South
Wales, who have not been backward in their support of anti-Chinese
{294} legislation, and meets with the general support of Australians,
as was shown by the unanimity with which the Premiers, assembled in
Conference early in 1896, decided against participation in the
Anglo-Japanese treaty and in favour of the extension to other coloured
races of the restrictions placed upon the influx of the Chinese. But,
from the point of view of the working classes, antipathy is felt,
principally, towards competitors who have a lower standard of comfort,
and the difficulties placed in the way of Imperial statesmanship are
persistently ignored.