Chapter XVI.
Conciliation and Arbitration—The Arbitration Court.
A brief sketch has been given already of the Arbitration Court, with its judge and two assessors and its great powers. It had been in existence for a considerable time before it was called upon to attend to its duties. The Act received the Governor’s assent in August, 1894, and came into force on New Year’s Day, 1895, but no use was made of it until the end of that year.
Its passing into law, which is one of the most important events in the colony’s industrial history, did not raise any enthusiasm whatever, even amongst those who have benefited by its provisions. Before it was passed through Parliament the interest shown in it was not nearly as keen as might be expected, and outside of Parliament it did not meet with as much opposition as was launched against several other labour laws of much less importance.
During the three years between 1891 and 1894 that it was in suspense, as Mr. Reeves has stated, it neither roused the least enthusiasm nor attracted great attention. There was plenty of political excitement in those days, he says, but not about the Industrial Arbitration Bill. “It did not awaken a tithe of the interest and energy expended over a Bill for closing shops on one half-holiday in each week. At the outset the larger newspapers either violently condemned or threw cold water upon it. After a while two or three came round to express guarded approval. A conference of employés from all parts of the colony, held in 1891, objected absolutely to the compulsory clauses and other parts of the Bill.” In a letter addressed to Mr. Reeves, the conference stated that “the employed, quite as much as the employer, require to be protected against the theoretical measures of trade reformers and idealist
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