The two features of the Labour party in New South Wales are its detachment from other parties and the control of the caucus. The caucus, which is the natural corollary of the detachment, determines by majority the vote of the whole of the members of the party, independence of action being allowed on minor questions only. So far the party has refrained from formal alliance with the other great parties of the state. It supports the government as the power alone capable of promoting legislation, but its support is given only so long as the measures of the government are consistent with the Labour policy. This position the Labour party has been able to maintain with great success, owing to the circumstance that the other parties have been almost equally balanced.

The movement towards forming a parliamentary Labour party was not confined to New South Wales; on the contrary, it was common to all the states, having its origin in the failure of the Great Strike of 1890. The experience Parliamentary Labour party. of the party was also much the same as in New South Wales, but its greatest triumphs were achieved in South Australia. The Labour party has been in power in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia, and has, on many occasions, decided the fate of the government on a critical division in all the states except Tasmania and Victoria. Different ideals dominate the party in the different states. The one ideal which has just been described represents the Labour party from the New South Wales standpoint. The only qualification worth mentioning is the signing of the pledge of solidarity. The other ideal, typified by the South Australian party, differs from this in one important respect. To the Labour party in that state are admitted only persons who have worked for their living at manual labour, and this qualification of being an actual worker is one that was strongly insisted upon at the formation of the party and strictly adhered to, although the temptation to break away from it and accept as candidates persons of superior education and position has been very great. On the formation of the Commonwealth a Labour party was established in the federal houses. It comprises one-third of the representation in the House of Representatives, and perhaps a still larger proportion in the Senate. The party is, however, formed on a broader basis than the state parties, the solidarity pledge extends only to votes upon which the fate of a government depends. Naturally, however, as the ideals of the members of the party are the same, the members of the Labour party will be generally found voting together on all important divisions, the chief exception being with regard to free trade or protection. The Labour party held power in the Commonwealth for a short period, and has had the balance of power in its hands ever since the formation of the Commonwealth.

(T. A. C.)

Australian legislation in the closing years of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th bore the most evident traces of the Labour party’s influence. In all the colonies a complete departure from principles laid down by the Recent legislation. leading political economists of the 19th century was made when acts were passed subjecting every branch of domestic industry to the control of specially constituted tribunals, which were empowered among other important functions to fix the minimum rate of wages to be paid to all grades of workmen. (See also the articles [Arbitration and Conciliation]; [Trade Unions]; [Labour Legislation].)

Victoria was the pioneer in factory legislation, the first Victorian act of that character dating from 1873. In 1884 a royal commission, appointed two years earlier to inquire into the conditions of employment in the colony and certain allegations of Victoria. “sweating” that had then recently been made, reported that:—“The most effective mode of bringing about industrial co-operation and mutual sympathy between employers and employed, and thus obviating labour conflicts in the future, is by the establishment of courts of conciliation in Victoria, whose procedure and awards shall have the sanction and authority of law.” This report led to the passing of a number of acts which, proving ineffectual, were followed by the Factories and Shops Act of 1896, passed by the ministry of Mr (afterwards Sir Alexander) Peacock. This measure, together with several subsequent amending acts, of which the most important became law in 1903, 1905 and 1907, forms a complete industrial code in which the principle of state regulation of wages is recognized and established. Its central enactment was to bring into existence (1) “Special Boards,” consisting of an equal number of representatives of employers and workmen respectively in any trade, under the presidency of an independent chairman, and (2) a Court of Industrial Appeals. A special board may be formed at the request of any union of employers or of workmen, or on the initiative of the Labour department. After hearing evidence, which may be given on oath, the special board issues a “determination,” fixing the minimum rate of wages to be paid to various classes of workers of both sexes and different ages in the trade covered by the determination, including apprentices; and specifying the number of hours per week for which such wages are payable, with the rates for overtime when those hours are exceeded. The determination is then gazetted, and it becomes operative over a specified area, which varies in different cases, on a date fixed by the board. Either party, or the minister for Labour, may refer a determination to the court of industrial appeals, and the court, in the event of a special board failing to make a determination, may itself be called upon to frame one. The general administration of the Factories and Shops Acts, to which the special boards owe their being, is vested in a chief inspector of factories, subject to the control of the minister of Labour in matters of policy. Before the end of 1906 fifty-two separate trades in Victoria had obtained special boards, by whose determinations their operations were controlled.

A similar system was introduced into South Australia South Australia.
Queensland. by an act passed in 1900 amending the Factory Act of 1894, which was the first legislation of the sort passed in that state.

In Queensland, where the earliest factory legislation dates from 1896, keen parliamentary conflict raged round the proposal in 1907 to introduce the special boards system for fixing wages. More than one change of government occurred before the bill became law in April 1908.

In New South Wales, whose example was followed by Western Australia, the machinery adopted for fixing the statutory rate of wages was of a somewhat different type. The model followed in these two states was not Victoria but New Zealand, where an Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration New South Wales. Act was passed in 1894. A similar measure, under the guidance of the attorney-general, the Hon. B.R. Wise, was carried after much opposition in New South Wales in 1901, to remain in force till the 30th of June 1908. By it an arbitration court was instituted, consisting of a president and assessors representing the employers’ unions and the workers’ unions respectively; in any trade in which a dispute occurs, any union of workmen or employers registered under the act was given the right to bring the matter before the arbitration court, and if the court makes an award, an application may be made to it to make the award a “common rule,” which thereupon becomes binding over the trade affected, wherever the act applies. The award of the court is thus the equivalent of the determination of a special board in Victoria, and deals with the same questions, the most important of which are the minimum rates of wages and the number of working hours per week. The act contained stringent provisions forbidding strikes; but in this respect it failed to effect its purpose, several strikes occurring in the years following its enactment, in which there were direct refusals to obey awards.

In the years 1900 and 1902 acts were passed in Western Australia still more closely modelled on the New Zealand act than was the above-mentioned statute in New South Wales. Unlike the latter, they reproduced the institution of district Western Australia. conciliation boards in addition to the arbitration court; but these boards were a failure here as they were in New Zealand, and after 1903 they fell into disuse. In Western Australia, too, the act failed to prevent strikes taking place. In 1907 a serious strike occurred in the timber trade, attended by all the usual accompaniments, except actual disorder, of an industrial conflict.

In all this legislation one of the most hotly contested points was whether the arbitration court should be given power to lay it down that workers who were members of a trade union should be employed in preference to non-unionists. This power Federal Arbitration Act of 1904. was given to the tribunal in New South Wales, but was withheld in Western Australia. It was the same question that formed the chief subject of debate over the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Act, which, after causing the defeat of more than one ministry, passed through the Commonwealth parliament in 1904. It was eventually compromised by giving the power, but only with safeguarding conditions, to the Federal arbitration court. This tribunal differs from similar courts in the states inasmuch as it consists of a single member, called the “president,” an officer appointed by the governor-general from among the justices of the High Court of Australia. The president has the power to appoint assessors to advise him on technical points; and considerable powers of devolution of authority for the purpose of inquiry and report are conferred upon the court, the main object of which is to secure settlement by conciliatory methods. The distinctive object of the Federal Act, as defined in the measure itself, is to provide machinery for dealing with industrial disputes extending beyond any one state, examples of which were furnished by the first two important cases submitted to the court—the one concerning the merchant marine of Australia, and the other the sheep shearers, both of which were heard in 1907. An additional duty was thrown on the Federal arbitration court by the Customs and Excise Tariff Acts of 1906, in which were embodied the principles known as the “New Protection.” By the Customs Act the duty was raised on imported agricultural implements, while as a safeguard to the consumer the maximum prices for the retail of the goods were fixed. In order to provide a similar protection for the artisans employed in the protected industries, an excise duty was imposed on the home-produced articles, which was to be remitted in favour of manufacturers who could show that they paid “fair and reasonable” wages, and complied with certain other conditions for the benefit of their workmen. The chief authority for determining whether these conditions are satisfied or not is the Federal arbitration court.