Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/243

207 A NEW PROVINCE FOR LAW AND ORDER 207 act — not at the instance of the union, but on the application of the Prime Minister and if the mine-owners concurred. But I stipulated that my hands must be free either to grant or refuse the eight hours as should seem just. The Prime Minister then, by- other machinery — (assuming it to be vaHd) — caused the claims of the miners and the mine-owners to be granted without evidence and without argument as to the eight hours, the union undertaking that there should be no further trouble during the war. It is not seemly that I should make use of this review for the purposes of putting my view of the action of the Prime Minister, but those who care to follow the controversy will find it in the eleventh or twelfth volume of the reports of the Court. The consequences of the action were certainly disastrous. The union failed in its undertaking; there were frequent local stoppages; and at last in August, 191 7, the men of the union, with the approval of their leaders, struck work in sympathy with the railway employees of New South Wales — of which I shall say more presently. This Court, at all events, was preserved from a course which would have fatally injured its character and its influence. The second case occurred about June, 19 17. The glass bottle- makers of three cities suddenly struck work. At the request of the employers the President called a conference. The dispute was as to payment for defective machine-made bottles. Nothing would induce the men to return to work unless their demand was conceded. According to their leaders, the men thought that the employers would yield rather than have their furnaces extinguished and their plants idle, but the employers did not yield. The President gave his sanction to a prosecution for penalties. Certain penalties were imposed and the men had to return to work on the employers' terms. A refusal of this kind to accept arbitration is unprecedented, and I have not been able to understand it unless it be an explanation that the industry depended on imported German or Austrian glass- blowers.^^ In addition to these two cases there has been a "sympathetic strike" on the part of a registered union; but it was not in support of any dispute of which the Court could take cognisance. In August, 191 7, there was a strike of engineers and others in the state railway •' Glass bottle-making, ii Com. Arb. (1917).