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British Dominions and Colonies.&mdash;Trade unionism has only developed to any considerable extent in a few of the industrial centres of the self-governing dominions. A great number of the unions in Canada are branches of organizations having their headquarters in the United States or in England. In July 1907 the Canadian Labour Gazette stated that of the 1593 local trade unions known to be in existence, 1346 were affiliated with central organizations of an international character. Besides these 1593 local trade unions, there were 8 congresses and national associations of labour, 49 trade and labour councils and 31 federations of trade unions known to be in existence.

Between 1876 and 1890 all the principal Australian states passed statutes more or less resembling the Trade Union Acts of the United Kingdom. A similar law was passed in New Zealand in 1878, but in this dominion and in some of the Australian states trade unions can now become incorporated and acquire a special legal status by registration as industrial unions under the laws relating to industrial conciliation and arbitration. In New Zealand there were, in 1906, 261 unions of workers with a membership of 29,869 and 133 unions of employers with a membership of 3276. In the years immediately preceding 1890 certain Australian unions, especially among the shearers and the seamen and wharf labourers, acquired great strength, and their determined attempts to secure a monopoly of employment for members of

their organizations led to prolonged labour disputes in 1890 and 1891 (see ), which resulted in the defeat of the unions and a consequent diminution of their membership and influence. More recently the unions have revived. They are encouraged by the laws relating to arbitration and conciliation, which (inter alia) permit preference for employment to be awarded to members of trade unions in certain circumstances.

There is no general consensus of opinion as to the extent to which trade unions can attain success in achieving the objects which they set before themselves, or as to how far their action is beneficial or otherwise to the general community. One of the principal objects of trade unions being to maintain and increase the rates of wages paid to their members, the first question would be practically solved if statistical evidence were available to connect the course of wages with the action of combinations. Such evidence, however, is inconclusive. The period of growth of trade unionism in Great Britain has certainly been on the whole a period of rising wages. But many other causes tending to raise wages have been operative over the same period, and some of the facts might be explained as much by the tendency of rising wages to strengthen combinations as by that of combinations to raise wages.

Again, the observed fact that the rise has not been confined to industries in which organizations are strong might be explained either by the supposition that the rise brought about by trade unions has benefited a wider circle than their membership, or that the rise both within and outside the ranks of trade unions is due to causes other than their action. Perhaps the strongest statistical evidence of the power of trade unions to affect wages in particular districts is afforded by the local differences of wages in the same trade, which, it is contended, cannot be wholly explained by local differences of cost of living or industrial conditions, but which often correspond closely to differences of strength of trade union organization. This argument, however, does not touch the question of the effect of combination on the general level of wages.

Hardly more conclusive than the reasoning founded on statistics have been the attempts to solve the question by pure economic theory. During the prevalence of the old view of wages known as the &ldquo;wage-fund&rdquo; theory, combinations were usually held to be powerless to affect the general rate of wages, because they could not alter the proportion between capital and population, on which wages were thought to depend. The question however, was reopened by the change in theory which led economists to regard wages as depending primarily on the productivity of industry, and secondarily (and within comparatively narrow limits) on the relative power of bargaining as between the labourers or groups of labourers and the organizers of labour. According to this view, the effect of combinations on the rate of wages will ultimately depend, so far as the first and most important factor in the problem is concerned, on their effect on the general productiveness of industry. Prima facie, we might expect that trade unionism would, on the whole, restrict productiveness, and this