King's tuition in politics at this stage came from
William Mulock, who as a member of the Commons in Opposition, had
fathered the fair trade resolution in Convention and did much to
convert the Liberal party from free to "freer" trade.

In the eight years up till 1908, by experience with conditions, King
made himself master of the subject which was later to appear in his
book, "Industry and Humanity." He was repeatedly made chairman of this
or that mission, board, and commission at home or abroad, to get the
true facts about labour, immigration and employment. By a sort of
genius for conciliating groups, even when he antagonized individuals,
he became for a time the world's most successful mediator in labour
disputes. Industrial warfare had not as yet adopted the trench system.
Direct action, the One Big Union, the sympathetic strike and collective
bargaining were scarcely dreamed of, though anticipated in the
philosophy of Karl Marx, as yet not transplanted to America.
Socialism, as expressed by Henry George, whose "Progress and Poverty"
was a classic in King's college days, was the most radical element with
which the young Deputy had to deal. But the Government's policy of
foreign labour nationals being gradually absorbed into labour unions
made Canada, in proportion to population, a very difficult country in
which to act as conciliator.

During his eight years as Deputy, King was made two offers, each of
which illuminates the criticism that in the war he was only a nominal
citizen of Canada. A group of Canadian employers, recognizing his
success as a mediator, offered him $8,000 a year to act on their behalf
with the heads of labour. Without consulting his chief, King declined
the offer. He said that he preferred the $2,500 from the Labour
Department, where he could be independent of either one side or the
other. Later President Eliot, of Harvard, on the death of the man who
occupied the chair of political economy, offered King the post,
pointing out that his duties would keep him but six months a year in
Boston. The salary was at least twice what he was getting in Ottawa.
Again without consulting his chief, King declined, on the pretext that
he had no desire to leave the useful work he was doing for the Ottawa
Government to become a citizen, even of eminence, in the United States.
During the same period he was asked to act as conciliator in a great
mining strike in Colorado, when violence and murder were