Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/249

213 A NEW PROVINCE FOR LAW AND ORDER 213 workers. Information having been received that the members — about three thousand — had struck work in New South Wales in sympathy with the New South Wales railway men, the president directed the case to be put in his list with liberty to any party to file affidavits. It appeared that the members, though engaged in manufacturing steel for rails and rifles required by the British and Australian and state governments, had struck; and the court dis- missed the dispute under a clause of the act empowering the Court to dismiss it if further proceedings are not desirable in the public interest.^ "This Court has repeatedly expressed the value which it attaches to unionism and with no uncertain voice, but this Court cannot help unionism in a struggle against the pubUc interest." ^ It is hard to see what more could be done by the Court, a court created by and for the pubUc of Australia. It remains to be seen how far these methods will be successful. The only complete remedy is the adoption of a clearer and higher ideal of duty. The moral and psychological problem remains. Improvements in the Law, Etc. I referred in the previous article to the applications previously made to the Court for prohibition against the president for alleged excess of the constitutional powers. The applications mostly turned on the meaning of the word "dispute," or the words "ex- tending beyond the limits of any one State''; and the prohibition proceedings were extraordinarily long and costly. The Court of Conciliation might take weeks in investigating the merits of the case and in making an award, and then any one dissatisfied party might bring proceedings for prohibition on the ground that there was no "dispute," etc. The proceedings were generally unsuccess- ful, it is true, but the uncertainty as to being able to hold an award should they get it, deterred many unions from approaching the Court for relief instead of stopping work. My American friends will be pleased to know that this obstacle to the usefulness of the Court is no longer formidable. In the first place the High Court has better defined the meaning of the words by certain decisions; and " § 38 A- " Ironworkers, 11 Com. Arb. (1917).