ng's policy of radical protest. That is,
the majority of the working people still express confidence in the
possibilities of compulsory arbitration, and even want to extend it.

Professor Le Rossignol of the United States and Mr. William D. Stewart
of New Zealand have undertaken a careful and elaborate investigation of
compulsory arbitration in New Zealand.[74] A reference to a few of their
quotations from original documents will show the nature and
possibilities of this coercive measure as it has developed in the
country of its origin. The original law in New Zealand was introduced by
the Honorable William Pember Reeves, the Minister of Labor, in 1894, and
was supported by the labor leaders. Mr. Reeves says: "What the act was
primarily passed to do was to put an end to the larger and more
dangerous class of strikes and lockouts. The second object of the act's
framer was to set up tribunals to regulate the conditions of labor."

"Mr. Reeves' chief idea," say our authors, "was to prevent strikes, and
a great deal more was said in Parliament about industrial peace than
about the improvement in the conditions of labor which the act was to
bring about. But there can be little doubt that the unionists, without
whose help the act could not have been passed, thought more of the
latter than of the former result, and looked upon the act as an
important part of the new legislation for the benefit of the working
class." Here is the contrast that we must always keep in mind. _The
purpose of the unionists is to see if they cannot obtain improvements in
their conditions; the purpose of the employers and also of "the public"
is to prevent strikes._ One of the most able students of the situation,
Mr. MacGregor, has shown that since the passing of the law the latter
purpose has been thoroughly accomplished, since it has been used not
only as was originally intended, to settle labor disputes which become
so serious as to threaten to "arrest the processes of industry," but
that it has practically built up a "system of governmental regulation of
wages and conditions of labor in general." That is to say, the law has
accomplished rather the purposes of the employers than those of the
employees.

In another point of the most fundamental importance the law has become
something radically different from what the labor leaders who first
favored it hoped it would be. The act of 1894 was entitled: "An act to
encourage the formation of industrial