The homogeneous nature of the colonial population was conducive to strengthening this characteristic. The colonists were almost wholly from Great Britain. Assisted immigration resulted in the selection of immigrants of a most desirable nature. As a result there was similarity in traditions, customs, ideals-characteristics that make for solidarity of the group and increase tendencies toward community or collective action.

Then too the idealism of Wakefield had left its impress upon community thought, it gave them a utopian vision, a sort of paternalistic ideal of what government may do for the people through regulation.

These are the conditions and tendencies that naturally resulted in the socialistic legislation of Australasia. The effects of this legislation can best be seen in concrete illustrations.

Economic organization of workers in Australasia was comparatively late because the services of skilled workers were so much in demand that the workers received good wages. Following upon the reaction of the rush to the gold fields the number of people seeking work greatly increased. Organization became necessary for self-protection and the labor movement began. After the fifties the movement steadily grew.

The official Bulletin published by the Australian Commonwealth classifies the labor organizations under four classes: (1) independent local unions; (2) those with a state organization; (3) organizations whose jurisdiction extends over two or more states; (4) Australasian or international organizations which include workers in merchant service or nomadic trades.

The census for 1912 gives the following figures: Total number of members of trade unions in the Commonwealth 433,224; total number of employes over 20 years old in all professions, trades, and occupations, 944,559.

There is no federation of all the labor organizations of Australia, although efforts have been made in that direction. In 1879 when a world exposition was held at Sydney an intercolonial labor congress was held also. Other congresses were held afterwards at various intervals of three, four and five years but no permanent organization was established. These congresses considered only matters of intercolonial or interstate nature. Each was called through the initiative of some trade especially interested. Some of the allied trades have organized trades councils-such as the building trades, the iron trades, the food producing and food distributing trades.

Method of Political Regulation

In the Australasian states minimum wages have been established by means of governmental agencies in two ways: wages boards established for the purpose of fixing wages and industrial arbitration courts to prevent strikes, The first of these laws was the compulsory arbitration law of New Zealand following the seamen's strike. Arbitration courts have found that they must exercise the power to regulate wages as an incidental power necessary to the effort to maintain industrial peace.

The minimum wage is fixed by wages boards, government agents who have the right to compel employers to pay at least the wage fixed. Where the minimum wage is a by-product of industrial arbitration courts, workers have

been fined and imprisoned for not conforming to the decrees of the judges of these courts.

Courts of Industrial Arbitration have been established by West Australia, New Zealand, and the Commonwealth for industrial disputes that affect more than one state. Victoria and Tasmania have wages boards and no state arbitration courts. New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland have industrial courts to which decisions of wages boards may be referred.

South Australia in 1900 amended its factories act to provide for the estab lishment of wages boards. Court decisions practically invalidated the legisla tion. Further legislation was enacted in 1906. Again the courts interfered with the result that the wages board system did not really become operative until 1908 when the law was revised and made to forbid strikes and lockouts. In 1912 a compulsory arbitration law was adopted which subordinated wages boards to an arbitration court and established the judicial system of wage regulation.!

Queensland adopted the wages board system in 1908. Following the general strike which originated among the tram workers and tied up all industries in Brisbane, the compulsory arbitration system was adopted in 1912, accompanied of course by judicial regulation of wages.

New South Wales established an industrial arbitration system in 1901, which in 1908 was grafted upon a wages board system, so that the government undertook to regulate wages, hours and apprentices and to prohibit strikes and lockouts. The method of the New South Wales system is highly judicial in character. It proceeds by taking testimony as the basis for reaching judicial determination. Its wages boards have all the symptoms of courts. The arbitration act of 1912 did not modify the essentials of the system.

Tasmania enacted a wages boards act in 1910. It forbids strikes and lockouts in matters concerned with decisions of the state boards.

Victoria established the wages boards system in 1896 and has since extended the system and increased the powers of the various boards. The characteristic of the Victorian system is conciliation.

Even from this brief summary of legislation regulating wages this tendency is manifest. Wherever any degree of power to regulate wages is granted to state authority that authority with increased powers of enforcement is gradually extended.

Regulation in New South Wales

New South Wales is the chief industrial state of Australia and contains the largest city. The workings of their system of governmental regulation of wages is very interesting in view of the fact that similar legislation is urged for American industrial centers.

The law regulating industrial relations now operative in New South Wales became law April 15, 1912. The title of the law indicates how complete is the control which the government exercises: "An act to provide for the regulation of the conditions of industries in certain particulars by means of industrial conciliation and arbitration, and for the repression of lockouts and

strikes; to establish and define the powers, jurisdiction, and procedure of an industrial court and certain subsidiary tribunals; to preserve certain awards and industrial agreements."

The agencies and methods for exercising this control are of a judicial nature. This judicial characteristic is manifest in the fact that New South Wales has a Labor Attorney-General and in the details of the law and its operation given below.

The industrial arbitration legislation of New South Wales is intended to regulate employers as well as employes. It prescribes for them the minimum wages that can be paid, limits the hours of work and the proportion of apprentices. The state undertakes to police and enforce all awards through a professional prosecuting officer and a staff of industrial inspectors. Breaches of awards and industrial agreements are prosecuted in the arbitration and inferior courts of the state.

The whole system is under the supreme direction of the Court of Industrial Arbitration, which office is occupied by Judge Heydon.

The law of 1912 was intended to make various changes in the act of 1908. One purpose was to reduce the number of wages boards dealing with local wages and industrial conditions. In order to accomplish this the craft instead of the industry was made the basis for organization. The intention is to bring together allied industries under one chairman so that there shall be twenty-eight subsidiary courts of arbitration.

The "advanced" step which New South Wales desires to establish is the "principle of craft unionism which involves the claim that all craftsmen such as carpenters, engine drivers, painters, engineers, and so on, shall belong to the same union."

To take advantage of the 1912 Industrial Arbitration Act employers and employes must register. The registrar, a state official appointed under the act, has considerable discretionary power. He may register as an industrial union of employers any person or association of persons, or any incorporated company or association of incorporated companies, who or which has in the aggregate throughout the six months next preceding the date of the application for registration employed on the average, taken per month, not less than fifty employes. Any trade union may register as an industrial union of employes. However, any such application may be refused by the registrar if he is of opinion that the organization applying is not a bona fide trade union, or if registered under the act would not be a bona fide industrial union, or if it appears that another trade union to which the members of the applicants' union might conveniently belong has already been registered as an industrial union.

Applications must be made in writing, approved by the majority of the governing bodies in case of employers and by the majority of the committees of management for trade unions.

The judge of the Arbitration Court has absolute control over registration by his power of cancellation. "For any reason which may appear to it good" the court may cancel the registration of any union. The court may also cancel registration upon the request of an industrial union. Cancellation

however affords no relief from existing awards and industrial agreements, except when the union or its members have aided or instituted a strike or lockout and then upon consent of all parties concerned.

Industrial agreements may be made between employers and employes, and if not for a longer term than five years may be filed with the registrar by either party. When filed these agreements become enforceable just as awards made through agencies of the arbitration act.

Control over industrial regulation is centralized in the Court of Industrial Arbitration, which is a superior court, a court of record and seal. The court consists of one judge, Judge Heydon. In case of a vacancy the Governor may appoint a Supreme Court judge, a District Court judge, or a barrister of five years' standing. An additional or a deputy judge may be appointed when necessary who must have these same qualifications.

Under the industrial court are the wages boards. At the recommendation of the court, boards shall be constituted for the industry or calling. The ideal is to group trades or industries under twenty-eight heads, but numerous demarcation (jurisdictional) disputes have resulted in many more boards. This is another proof that industrial relations can not be arranged according to any theoretical plan-they have grown in certain shapes and forms and like all live organisms resent amputation and pruning.

The court recommends the chairmen and the other members of all boards who are appointed by the Minister. Each board consists of a chairman who presides and two or four other members, half of whom represent employers and half employes. When the employers or employes are largely women or girls, and there is in the opinion of the court no one of them suitable to act upon the board, an outsider may be appointed. Since the court is to be the judge as to the qualifications of a woman or girl to defend the rights and interests of her associate workers, may not intensity and persistency in a woman or a girl be regarded and held as disqualifying characteristics?

The boards model themselves after the parent body and are petty courts. They usually meet in police courts, a custom which adds judicial atmosphere. Members are appointed for three years but may be removed by the Minister. They take an oath not to reveal evidence of a confidential nature before the board. The sessions of the board may be public or secret at its discretion. The board members receive fees. Charges have been made that the fees are sufficient to lead to dilatory methods. It is the custom to appoint lawyers as chairmen of the boards. Often these are young lawyers of the "briefless" type and sometimes they are men of established reputations. Employers have made objection to trade union officials acting upon boards. This objection. has occasionally resulted in officials resigning office and working at their trades while serving upon the board. Employers even in Utopian Australia do not wish employes to have the advantage of the bargaining skill of trained men.

The boards examine witnesses and take evidence preparatory to reaching their judicial determinations. Their authority in making recommendations extends to the following:

(a) Fixing the lowest prices for work done by employes, and the lowest rate of wages payable to employes, other than aged, infirm, or slow workers.

(b) Fixing the number of hours and the times to be worked in order to entitle employes to the wages so fixed.

(c) Fixing the lowest rates for overtime and holidays and other special work, including allowances as compensation for overtime, holidays and other special work.

(d) Fixing the number or proportionate number of apprentices and improvers and the lowest prices and rates payable to them.

(e) Determining any industrial matter.

(f) Rescinding or varying any award made in respect of any of the industries or callings for which it has been constituted.

(g) Declaring that preference of employment shall be given to members of any industrial union of employes over other persons offering their labor at the same time, other things being equal: Provided that where any declaration giving such preference of employment has been made in favor of an industrial union of employes such declaration shall be cancelled by the Court of Arbitration if at any time such union or any substantial number of its members takes part in a strike or instigates or aids any other persons in a strike; such court may suspend such declaration for such period as to it may seem just.

An award is signed by the chairman and sent to the registrar, who publishes it in the New South Wales Industrial Gazette and notifies the parties concerned. Parties to the agreement, or any person, with the consent of the court, may apply for variations or amendments to the award.

New South Wales has suffered so much because of industrial dislocations (strikes or lockouts) in the mining district that the act of 1912 provided a special arrangement for such difficulties. These conciliation committees are not hampered by the judicial methods of the boards but endeavor to institute real conferences between the parties concerned in the industrial disagreement.

Since strikes and lockouts (dislocations) are forbidden by law, such illegal acts may be severely punished.

The court may fine industrial unions which instigate, take part in or aid strikes or lockouts a sum not to exceed one thousand pounds ($5,000).

Any individual who participates in a strike may be made to pay a fine not more than fifty pounds.

Wages may be attached to pay such fines.

If the person is a member of a trade or industrial union the union may be

fined in addition.

If any union of employes instigates or aids in an act for which any person can be fined the union may be ordered to pay a fine not to exceed one thousand pounds and its registration may be suspended or cancelled at the discretion of the court.

Uses of the injunction are legalized that out-Dayton our own Judge Dayton.

The courts may grant a writ of injunction to restrain any person from continuing to instigate or to aid in a strike or lockout. Such a writ may upon application be granted ex parte or on notice.

The dignity and majesty of the court are upheld by declaring violation of injunctive orders a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than six months.

conception that the labor power of human beings is a commodity