Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/552

 -?0 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL the regular neetings and discussions that had taken place between the official heads of the two bodies had improved the relations between the two parties in a quite extraorcinary way, and that in the course of the two years six great strikes, which were threatened, had been averted through the joint deliberation of seven men from each organisation These favourable results led in the same year 1887 to the foundation, with the co-operation of Government, of a formal Board of Conciliation, composed of 18 members, 9 from the Trades' Hall Council and 9 from the Employers' Union, with power to summon witnesses and examifie them on oath, but with no power of enforcing obedience to its decision except by the general obligation resting on eveo' union in association with the Board to refuse all support and sympathy to the recusant party. One of the rules in the constitution of this Board is that neither labourers nor employers are to attempt to make any change in the terms of the existing labour contract without giving the other party'to the contract two months' written notice, nor to declare for a strike or a lockout without communicating the subject of dispute to the Secretary of the Trades' Council and the Secretary of the Employers' Union. If these functionaries are not able to settle the matter, it must be submitted to a committee of investigation consisting of two members of the Trades' Hall Council and two members of the Employers' Union, and only when this committee has also been unsuccessful is the case sent, as a last resort, to the Board of Conciliation, gho make as complete an examination of the question as possible, and conduct the examin.tion entirely in public, so that the final court of appeal is really public opinion. I)r. Ruhland wrote apparently before the recent great strike, but he says that at the meetings of the Intercolonial Congress of the last few years the representatives from Victoria were never tired of pointing out what a treasure they had in these institutions for social peace, that employers and employed were learning more and thinking better of one another through them, and that when the organisation of unskilled labourers was completed they might yet see the day when there would be no more strikes. I)r. Ruhland next gives some account of the sweating system which exists in the clothing and shoemaking trades of Melbourne in very much the s.me form as in London, but he is certainly mistaken in saying that ' the source of the whole calamity lies undoubtedly in the eight hours day.' It may be true that if a man works only eight hours a day in the workshop he will be very ready to take work home for after hours, but as a matter of fact the tailors of Australia are not an eight hours trade at all, and the worst part of the sweating in Melbourne as revealed before the Shop Hours Commission was done by women who took in successive bands of young learners for six months without giving them any remuneration, and then sent them out half taught upon an already overcrowded trade. Dr. Ruhland calculates, though unfortunately without giving us any idea of the basis of his calculation, that while wages in Australia are 100 per cent. higher, and hours of