Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
More
Democracy
and
the
Quest
for
Social
Justice
495
again
be able
to
defy
the
popular
chamber,
Asquith
brought
in the
Parliament
Bill
and
the
Commons
adopted
it.
As
the Lords
were
in
no
mood
to
submit
to
this
operation,
and
believed
they
could
avert
it
by
reforming
the
composition
of
their
own
chamber,
there was
a
complete
deadlock.
Hoping
to
find
some
basis
of
agreement,
leaders of
the
oppos-
ing
parties
met
in
private
conferences that
lasted
through
the
summer
and
autumn,
only
to
reveal
that
neither
side
would
budge
without
another
appeal
to the
country.
Thereupon
the ten-months-old
parlia-
ment
was
dissolved,
and
the
second
general
election
of
the
year
was
called.
The
Conservatives,
encouraged
by
the
strength
they
had re-
covered
in
January,
counted
on
victory
at the
polls
in December.
But
the
standing
of
the
parties
in
the new
House turned
out to
be
practi-
cally
the
same
as in
the
old.
In
the
spring
of
19
1 1
the
Commons
again
passed
the
Parliament
Bill with
a
good majority.
In
the summer
the
Lords were about
to
destroy
it,
and
then the
prime
minister
announced
that
he
had the
king's
consent to
create
enough
peers
to ensure
its
passage.
That made
further
resistance
hopeless,
and
the Lords
surrendered.
By
the
Parliament Act of
191
1,
the Lords cannot hold
up
a
money
bill
for more
than a
month.
If
they
have not
passed
it
by
that
time,
it
becomes law on
receiving
the
royal
signature.
The act
defined
money
bills
and
made
the
speaker
of
the
Commons
the
sole
arbiter
of
whether
a bill satisfies
this
definition.
Any
other
bill,
except
one
prolonging
the
life
of
parliament
beyond
five
years,
similarly
becomes law
if
passed
by
the Commons
in three successive sessions over
a
period
of
two
years.
The
act
also
shortened the
potential
life
of
parliament
from seven to
five
years. Though
the Commons
cannot extend this
term without
the
free
consent
of
die
Lords,
in
everything
else
the
elected chamber
has
been
legally
supreme
over
the
hereditary
chamber
ever since
1911.
Immediately following
this
major
democratic
reform
came a minor
one,
but
minor
only by comparison;
and
by
a curious coincidence the
need
for
it arose
from
a
judicial
decision of
the House of Lords de-
livered
in
1909
at almost
the
very
time that that House made
its fatal
political
decision
to
reject
the
budget.
This was the Osborne
judgment,
which denied
the
legal
right
of
trade
unions
to tax their
members for
the
support
of
the Labor
party,
whose
parliamentary
members thus
lost
their
only
income.
Voluntary
collections
provided
a
stopgap
until
the Commons
were
able,
without
the concurrence
of the
Lords,
to vote
themselves
salaries
in the summer
of 191
1 at
the
princely
rate
of
400
a
year.
As the
Labor
party
had
other
financial
needs,
the
government
496
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN:
virtually
reversed
the
Osborne
judgment
in
the
following
year by
an
act that
legalized
any
political
levy
imposed
by
a
majority
vote
of
a
union. At
the
same
time,
as
a
polite
gesture
to the
doctrine
of
individ-
ual
liberty,
it
allowed
any
union
member
to
claim
exemption
from
the
levy
if he
had
the
temerity
to
do
so.
There
were
many
other
pieces
of
social
and
labor
legislation
enacted
during
this
stirring
Liberal
regime,
such as
gave
the miners
an
eight-hour
day
in
1908
and
a
minimum
wage
in
1911;
but
most of
them
are
scarcely
worth
mentioning
beside
the
greatest
of
all,
which
the
government
passed
as
soon as it
had
shorn
the
Lords
of
their veto.
This
was the
National
Insurance
Act
of
1911,
which
established
compulsory
health
and
unemployment
insurance
financed
by
contribu-
tions from the
state,
the
employers,
and the
workers.
Like the
Old
Age
Pension
Act,
it had
been
anticipated
by
an
eighteenth
century
English
parson;
but,
unlike
the Pension
Act,
it had not
been
preceded
by
much
public
discussion
in the
nineteenth
century.
It
derived
some
impetus
from
Germany,
where
Lloyd George
by
his
own
personal
observation in
1908
was
impressed
with
Bismarck's
health
insurance;
but
no
country
had
yet
undertaken
compulsory
unemployment
insurance,
if we
except
an
ephemeral
attempt
in
the
Swiss
canton
of
St.
Gall,
and the
Welsh-
man's
main contribution
was to
provide
the
funds.
The
Board
of
Trade
began
to
work
upon
the
scheme
of
national
insurance
in
the
autumn
of
1908,
and
much
of
the
credit
for
it must
be
given
to
the remarkable
cabinet
minister
who was
then
head
of
that
government
department-
Winston
Churchill.
He had the
vision
and
the
courage
to
appreciate
its
value
and to
carry
it
through.
The health
sections
of
the
act
inaugurated
what is
often
erroneously
called
state
medicine,
and
provided
weekly
cash
payments
in lieu of
wages
lost
through
illness.
To solve
the
old
problem
of
how
the
state
could
organize
social
security
without
injuring
the
trade unions and
the
Friendly
Societies,
their
voluntary
systems
were
incorporated
in the
statutory system,
and
they
were
adopted
as
machinery
for
administer-
ing
this
system.
They
had
merely
to become
approved
societies under
the
new
law.
As
membership
in them was
not
compulsory
and
they
in-
cluded
only
a
minority
of
the
people
to whom
the act
applied
all
manual
workers
between
the
ages
of
16 and
70
provision
was also
made
for
insurance
through
the
post
office.
However,
when the
opera-
tion
of
the act
got
under
way,
the
popular
preference
for
approved
societies
threw
most
of
the work into
their
hands. This
strengthened
More
Democracy
and
the
Quest
for
Social
Justice
497
these
voluntary
organizations
and
rescued
some of
them from
insolvency.
More
definitely
experimental
was
the
provision
for
unemployment
insurance,
which
applied
to
only
a
quarter
of
the
number covered
by
the health
clauses.
Protection
was
confined to
specified
industries
which,
by
their
very
nature,
suffered
more
than
others from seasonal
or
cyclical
unemployment
men's
trades,
chiefly
building
and
engi-
neering.
The
benefits
were
lower
than
wage
rates
and were
limited
to
fifteen
weeks
in
any
one
year,
which
covered the
familiar short
periods
of
recurrent
unemployment.
Viewed as
a
whole,
the
quest
for social
justice
in Britain
was humani-
tarian
rather
than
doctrinaire,
and
was not
a matter
of
party
politics
until
Liberal
leadership
brought
it
into
practical
focus.
Yet
hosts of
Conservatives
agreed
in
principle
with much
of the
labor
and social
legislation
that
their
political
opponents sponsored
during
the
eight
years
before
the
First
World
War;
and
in
that
period
of
mounting
party
strife,
the
issues that
generated
the
most heat
were two that
were
only
partly
connected
with
social
reform and
one
that
had
nothing
to
do
with it.
The one
was
Irish
Home
Rule,
which we
shall
consider in a
later
chapter.
The
other
two
were the
budget
of
1909,
which drew
fire
mainly
on
the
ground
that it
was an attack
against
property,
and the
House
of
Lords,
an
entrenched
stronghold
of
the
Conservatives
which
even
they
admitted could
not be
defended
against
the
advance
of
democracy
without some
radical
change
in
its structure.
Nevertheless,
the
establishment of the
welfare
state
was
an
upheaval
that
stirred
vehement
political
controversy
and much
class
bitterness;
and it
shook
Britain much
more
than,
a
generation
later,
the
New
Deal
shook the
United States. The
arguments
were
fundamentally
the
same;
but
the British
experience
was that
of
a
pioneer,
and
Americans
did not
have
to
go
through
the
ordeal
of
two
national
elections
in
one
year.
Turning
to
the
overseas
empire,
we find Australians
and New
Zea-
landers,
but
not
Canadians
or South
Africans,
experimenting
with
social
democracy.
The
underlying problem
did
not
exist
in
South
Africa,
where whites
were a
privileged
caste. Nor
was
it
present
in
Canada,
which shared
with
the
United
States the
incomparable
op-
portunities
of
the North American
agricultural
frontier.
Conditions
in the
antipodes
were
quite
different.
Heaven
decreed,
as we have
seen,
that
Australia could
not
develop
as an
agricultural
democracy;
and
though
nature
was kinder
to
New
Zealand,
human
obstacles
there
498
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN:
seemed
for
a while
to
impose
the
same
veto.
When
the
people
in
these
two
countries
found that
they
were
denied individual
economic
inde-
pendence,
they
turned to bold
social
experiments by
the
state.
They
did
this
half
a
generation
before
the mother
country;
but
they got
much
of
their
inspiration
from the discussions
that were
current
in
England,
5
and
they
were able
to act
more
quickly
because their
society
was
younger, simpler,
and more democratic.
The
30,000
that
the Australian
unions sent to
support
the
London
dock
strike in
1889 reflected
more than a
lively
Australian
interest
in
the
British
labor cause. It also
reflected
the
strength
that
organized
labor had
gained
in Australia.
Having recently
spread
from
the
mines
and
the
urban industries
to
include the
migratory
army
of
shearers
on
the
sheep
runs,
6
it
embraced
a
higher
percentage
of the
population
than
in
any
other
country
of the
world.
Prior to
this time
die
Aus-
tralian unions were
fighting organizations
that
relied on the
strike
to
get
what
they
wanted,
and the
dockers'
victory
in
London
reinforced
their
confidence
in this
weapon
on
the
very
eve of a
crisis in
which
it
failed them
disastrously.
The crisis came with
the
collapse
of a
boom
that
sustained
the
Australian
economy
until
the
end of
the
eighties.
The
discovery
of
the
rich
gold deposits
at
Mount
Morgan,
Queensland,
in
1882
was
a
godsend
to a
country
whose
production
of that
precious
metal
had
dropped
50
per
cent
in
twenty
years.
Falling
prices
of
everything
else
meant,
of
course,
that the
value of
gold
was
going
up.
The
growing
price
disparity
between
manufactured
goods
and
raw
materials
also
benefited
the
Australian
economy,
which
depended
on the
export
of
the
latter;
and the
introduction of
refrigerated
shipping
during
this
decade
gave
further
aid to
producers
of beef
and
mutton and
at
last
made it
possible
to
put
Australian butter
on
English
tables.
But
the
chief factor
in the
Australian
prosperity
of
the
eighties
was a
heavy
importation
of
capital.
Much
of
it
was
spent
on
ambitious
public
works,
much
of
it
swelled bank
deposits
for the
sake
of a
higher
interest
than
could be
got
in
England,
much
of it was
sunk
in
speculative
urban
real
estate,
and
all of
it
produced
inflation.
The
inevitable
slump
began
in
December
1889
with
a
big
Mel-
5
Henry
George
made
a
triumphal
lecturing
tour
through
New
Zealand
and
Australia
in
1889-90,
rousing
great
interest,
as he
had
earlier
done in
England,
in
how
legislation
could reform
society.
6
Whose
occupation
then
made them
the
first to
apply
the
word
"scab"
to
a
workman
who refused
to
join
a
union
or
who
took
the
place
of a
striking
union
man.
More
Democracy
and
the
Quest
for
Social
Justice
499
bourne
failure,
and it
was
accelerated
by
the much
bigger
collapse,
in
November
1890,
of the
international
banking
house
of
Baring
Brothers,
London.
Australian credit was
paralyzed,
only
the
soundest
banks
being
saved
from
the
general
wreck;
and
public
works
came
to
a
standstill,
glutting
the
labor market when
private
employers
were
turning
off hands. In the
mad scramble
for
cover,
a strike
in
the
ports,
which
began
in
September
1890,
started
other
strikes
that
soon
became
general.
But
picketing
and
violence,
of
which
there
was
more
than
a
little,
were futile
when
there were
plenty
of strikebreakers
eager
for
jobs
and the colonial
governments
stepped
in to
protect
them.
From
the most
disastrous defeat
in Australian
history,
trade
union-
ism
emerged
to
fight
on another
field
with
another
weapon.
It
plunged
into
politics,
forming
a
Labor
party
in
each of
the colonies.
The
first
test came
in the
New South Wales election
of
189
1,
when a
recent
law
for
the
payment
of members came
into force.
The
returns
gave
Labor
35
of
the
125 seats and
divided
the
remainder
almost
equally
between
the
two
old
parties,
thus
placing
the new
party
in
a
position
to domi-
nate
the
House.
As the
political
movement
spread
throughout
the
country,
Labor devised
a
system
of
party
discipline
more
rigid
and
effective
than
any
other
party organization
except
that of
the
Irish
Nationalists
in the British
parliament;
and it
forced
the
enactment
of
labor
laws,
some of
which
provided
for
public
arbitration
of
industrial
disputes.
Practical
experience
rather than
socialist
theory
dictated
this
labor
legislation
of
the
nineties. State
intervention
against
the
strikers
had
made
Labor
realize
the
power
of
the
state and
had
made
it deter-
mined to
wield
that
power
in its own
interest.
During
this decade
Australian
trade
unionism
mastered
the
tricks of
the
political
game
and
became
the
strongest
political
force
in the
land,
though
in
only
one
colony
did
the
party
attain
office,
and
that
for
scarcely
a
week.
After
federation,
in
1900,
Labor
was more
successful
politically,
taking
over
the
reins
of
state
governments
and
playing
a
leading
role
in
the
new
national
parliament.
There
it rode
the balance
of
power
and
dictated
much
legislation,
including
the
enactment
of old
age
and
invalid
pensions
in
1908.
Twice
in
this decade
it
formed
short-lived
administrations,
which
accomplished
little;
and
gradually
it drove
the
old
parties
into
a
fusion
which
was
designed
to
check,
but
actually
stimulated,
the
advance
of
the
Labor
party,
whose
inclination
toward
state
socialism
had
become
more
marked.
The
general
election
of
1910
turned
out
the
fusion
government
and
put
Labor
in
the saddle.
The
next
general
election,
in
1913,
gave
the
fusionists
a
majority
of one
in
500 CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN:
the
House
and
again they
took
office,
but
only
until
the
following
year,
when
deadlock forced
a
dissolution
and
the
voters
restored the
Labor
government.
From
1900
Labor
sought
to
fight
its
decisive
battles
in
federal
rather
than state
politics,
which
may
seem
strange
in
light
of the
fact
that
the
constitutional
distribution
of
powers
left
the states in
control
of
their
own
industry,
commerce,
and
other activities
that
also
most
nearly
affected the
economic
life
and
social
well-being
of the
country.
But
immigration
and
the
tariff,
in
both
of
which Labor
had
a
special
interest,
were
federal
matters;
there
was the
possibility, suggested
by
the
American
example
with which
many
Australians
were
quite
familiar,
that the balance
of
the
constitution
would
swing
in
favor
of
the
central
government;
and
Labor
was anxious to
push
this
develop-
ment
because
it
offered both tactical
and
strategic advantages.
Labor
could,
and
presently
did,
win control of the elected
Australian
Senate,
whereas
it
had
been
having
difficulty
with
the
nominated
second
chambers in
the
colonies
which were
carried over
into the new
regime;
and what was
of more
importance,
it
was
better
to
fight
one
overriding
battle than six
simultaneous
and
widely
scattered
engagements.
Though
Labor's
prime
interest
in
immigration
was the
absolute
exclu-
sion
of
Orientals,
the
law which the first
federal
parliament
promptly
enacted
for this
purpose
also
squinted
at
white
immigration,
for it
con-
tained
a clause
that
forbade
the
entry
of
"any persons,"
irrespective
of
color,
"under a contract
to
perform
manual labor." The
party prized
this
provision
as a
protection
against
cheap
European
labor
that
employers
might
import.
But
Australia had
little
to
fear on
this score as
long
as
Europeans
could
migrate
freely
to much
nearer
and richer
America;
and
many
Australians felt
silly
when
attempts
were
made,
under
this
clause,
to
bar
respectable
British artisans
coming
to
fixed
employment,
particularly
six
English
hatters
who
were soon
dubbed
the
"mad
hat-
ters." The clause had its teeth
pulled
in 1905.
The tariff
was a
different
matter,
and
Labor was
divided
over
it
until
shortly
after
federation. Then it drew
together
on the
issue
and
joined
the
manufacturers in
demanding
protection.
In
doing
this,
Labor was not
just
drifting
with the
tide of
public
opinion.
There
was
a
shrewd
political
calculation
behind
the
move. It was
that
the
govern-
ment
could
not confer
benefits on
manufacturers,
a
small
class,
without
forcing
them
to
pass
on most
of
these benefits to
their
employees.
One
device,
that was
called
the
New
Protection
and
worked
until the
High
Court
of
Australia declared it ultra
vires,
was to
require
domestic
More
Democracy
and
the
Onest
for
Social
Justice
501
manufacturers to
pay
an
excise tax that
balanced
the increase
of
the
customs
duty
unless
they
could show that
they
paid
"fair
and
reason-
able"
wages
and
observed other
regulations
for
the
benefit of
their
workmen.
More
effective
was the
development
of conciliation and
arbitration
for
the
settlement
of
industrial
disputes by
further state
legislation
and
now
by
federal
legislation
too,
the latter
being
specifically
authorized
by
the
constitution
for
disputes
extending
beyond
the limits
of
any
one
state.
To
circumvent the
laggard
state
legislatures,
the
Labor
party
determined
to
stretch
the
federal
power, demanding
that
state
em-
ployees,
who
included all
railway
workers,
be
expressly brought
under
the
jurisdiction
of
the
proposed
national tribunal.
This
demand,
which
was
plainly
unconstitutional,
and Labor's
attempt
to
write
into
the
projected
law a
considerable
measure
of
preference
for union
members,
such
as was
prescribed
in New
South
Wales,
delayed
until
1904
the
passage
of an act
on
the
subject,
which embodied
a
compromise
on
the
question
of
preference
to
unionists.
The act
creating
the
federal Conciliation
and Arbitration
Court
endowed
it
with extensive
authority
to
fix
wages
and
regulate
working
conditions.
It
consisted of
a
single
member,
called
the
president,
chosen
from the
justices
of
the
High
Court
of
Australia;
but
he could
appoint
assessors
to
advise him
on
technical
points,
and
he could dele-
gate
power
to conduct
inquiries.
The choice
naturally
fell on
the man
who
had inserted
in
the
constitution the
provision
for
this
court,
H. B.
Higgins;
for sixteen
years
he
presided
over
it,
making
his
name blessed
to countless
toiling
Australians.
Clever
lawyers
found
unsuspected ambiguities
in
the
apparently
clear
wording
of
the act that confined
the
jurisdiction
of
the court to
disputes
extending
beyond
the limits of
any
one
state,
and the
judg-
ments
of
the court
carried such
weight
that
they
influenced
the
deci-
sions of
state
tribunals.
"It
may
seem
very shocking
in some
quarters,"
Higgins
declared
in one of
his
early judgments,
"but
it
is
my
clear
duty,
in
obedience
to
the
law,
to
treat
unionism
as a
desirable
aid
in
securing
industrial
peace."
In
the
beginning
he laid down
the
principle
of
a
minimum
wage
tied
to
the
cost
of
living
and defined this as
what
was
necessary
to
meet
"the
normal
needs
of
an
average
employee,
regarded
as
a human
being
in
a civilized
country." Among
such
needs,
in
addi-
tion
to
food,
shelter,
and
clothing,
he
recognized "frugal
comfort,"
a
certain
amount
of
leisure,
"provision
for evil
days,"
and
the
raising
of
a
family
of
three
children.
For
special strength
or
skill,
the court
502
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN:
awarded
higher
rates;
but
it
tended
to
subordinate
the
claims
of
the
favored
few
to
those
of the
unskilled,
thereby
reflecting
the
egalitarian
and
class-conscious
spirit
that
prevailed
in Australia.
Of
course
em-
ployers
bitterly
resented the sacrifice
of
a "free
economy"
on
the
altar
of
social
justice,
but
Australians
as a
whole
were
proud
of their
achieve-
ment.
They
believed that
by
harnessing capitalism
to serve
the
interest
of
the
common
man,
instead of
allowing
it
to run
rampant
as
in
America at
that
time,
they
were
far
ahead
of all other
peoples
in
the
world,
with the
possible exception
of
the New
Zealanders.
During
the nineties New Zealand
attracted wide
attention
in
the
outside
world
as the
pioneer
of
social
democracy.
For
this
distinction,
organized
labor
was less
responsible
than
a
fortuitous
combination
of
circumstances and men.
Trade unionism in New
Zealand
lagged
far
behind the Australian
movement,
being scarcely
noticeable
until
1890
and
forming
no
political
party
of
its
own until 1909. In
further
con-
trast
to
Australia,
which
enjoyed
prosperity
until the
end
of
the
eighties,
New
Zealand entered
upon
a
long
period
of
economic
prostra-
tion in
1879,
when its
credit
collapsed
after a
spell
of
extravagant
borrowing
and
spending.
Unemployment piled
up
in
the
towns,
depressing
wages
and
working
conditions.
Immigration
fell
off
and
in
the late
eighties
was
exceeded
by
emigration.
This
seemed
to
be
the
only escape;
for in the
South
Island,
where
most
of
the
population
still
lived because of the
troubles
with
the
Maoris,
the
land
was
largely
monopolized by
the
pastoral
oligarchy
whose
influence
had
long
dominated the
government.
At last there
was
a
political
upheaval,
born
of
desperation
and
released
by
a
reform of the
electoral
system
in
1889,
This
was
the
abolition of
plural
voting,
which
had
enabled
property
owners to
stultify
the
manhood
suffrage
adopted
some
years
before.
In
the
general
election of 1890
the
"continuous
ministry,"
which
had
nothing
constructive
to
offer,
was
routed
by
a
newly
formed
progressive
com-
bination that
cried out for
state
action to
break
the
economic
impasse.
The
victors were
really
a
farmer-labor
party,
though
it was
called
Liberal or Liberal-Labor
because
its
leaders
were
Liberals.
They
con-
stituted the cabinet that
took
office
when the
old
government
was
forced
to
resign
in
1891.
The
electoral
decision
was
less
revolutionary
than
many
outsiders
have
supposed.
The
appeal
to
state
action was
in
harmony
with
a
tradition
already
established
in New
Zealand,
with
its
government
railways,
telegraphs,
and
telephones,
all
antedating
1890.
Moreover,
More
Democracy
and
the
Quest
for
Social
Justice
503
the
state
had
long
been
serving
the
public
in the
capacity
o
a
trust
company
and
had
developed
the
largest
business of
the
land
in
the
country.
Likewise,
it
had
entered
the
business of life
insurance,
out-
distancing
all
private
competitors.
Though
the
change
of
policy
that
followed
1890
was
vigorous,
it
was one
of
tempo,
of
degree
rather
than
of
kind.
For
some
of the
experimental
legislation
enacted
by
the
New
Zealand
parliament
under
the
Liberals,
precedents
can also
be found
in the
municipal
socialism
practiced
in
England
and on
the continent
of
Europe.
But the
departure
of
municipal
bodies
from
"orthodoxy"
is
never so
striking
as
that
of a national
government.
The
first
important
measure
of the
new
regime
reversed
the
principle
of
taxation. In
place
of
a
property
tax that was
regressive
in character
and
inelastic in
yield,
it
substituted
a
land
and income
tax
that was
progressive
in
incidence
and would
produce
an
expanding
revenue.
This
act of
1891
also
provided
for self-assessment
and,
as
a
check
upon
it,
gave
the
government
the
right
to
purchase
at
the assessed
value.
The
owners
of one
huge
estate
tried to bluff
the administration
into
accept-
ing
a reduced
assessment,
and
paid
for
it
by
the enforced
sale
of the
property,
which was then broken
up
and settled
with small
lease-
holders,
who
thereby
gained
much from
a transaction
that cost the
government
nothing.
Thus
began
a
rural transformation
that,
speeded
by
further
enabling
legislation
in the
early
nineties,
made
New
Zealand
a
nation
of small
fanners.
The
main
driving
force
behind
it was
John
McKenzie,
minis-
ter for
lands,
immigration,
and
agriculture,
who
began
life as the
son
of
a Scottish
Highland
crofter and
was honored
with
a
knighthood
shortly
after
he retired
from
office
in 1900.
Of
course
his
policy
could
not
have
succeeded
if conditions
had
not
favored
it. Nature
provided
an
ideal
soil
and
climate
for close
settlement;
the
contemporary
devel-
opment
of
refrigerated
shipping
made
small
farming
profitable
by
opening
the
English
market
to New
Zealand
meat and
dairy produce;
and
now
an abundance
of
crown
lands became
available
in
the
North
Island,
following
agreements
with
the
Maoris,
whose earlier
hostility
had
preserved
that
rich
part
of
New Zealand from
falling
into
the
clutches
of
big
sheepowners.
What
inspired
McKenzie
was
not
socialist
theory
but
the
typical
crofter's
passion
for the soil
and
hatred of mo-
nopolizing
landlords.
His
great
work
may
be
compared
with
the
regeneration
of
rural
Ireland,
which Conservatives
were
then
effecting.
7
See
infra,
p.
659-60.
504
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN:
Labor
legislation,
and its
administration,
was
the
special
charge
of
William
Pember Reeves.
He
was
the
most
influential
man
in
the
cabinet
until
he
left
it in 1896
to
represent
his
native
New
Zealand
as
high
commissioner
in
England,
where
he
later
became
head of
the
London
School
of Economics
and
a
prominent
Fabian.
Fine
scholar,
brilliant
writer,
compelling
debater,
and
very
capable
administrator,
he
was
the chief
intellectual
inspirer
of
the
Liberal-Labor
program,
and
he
still stands as
its most
authoritative
and
attractive
historian. About
the
only
criticism that
can
be
made
of
his
writings
on
the
subject
arises
from his
personal
modesty,
for
they
offer
little
suggestion
of how
great
was his own contribution
to
the
program.
During
Reeves'
few
years
as
minister
for
labor,
he
gave
New
Zealand
one of
the most
effective
labor
codes
in the
world.
Almost
single-
handed
he
designed
and
pushed
through
parliament
the most
famous
of all its
measures: the
Industrial
Conciliation
and
Arbitration Act
of
1894,
which
placed
New
Zealand
in the
forefront
of
the movement
to
preserve
industrial
peace
by
state
intervention.
"Frankly,
the
bill is
but
an
experiment,"
he
pleaded
in the
House,
"but
it
is
an
experiment
well
worth
the
trying.
Try
it,
and
if
it
fail,
repeal
it."
Employers
hated
it
but
were
powerless
to
remove it
from
the statute
book;
while
labor,
which
had
not demanded
the
measure,
rallied
enthusiastically
to its
support
and
soon
came
to
regard
it
as the
Magna
Carta
of the workers.
New
Zealand
was
the
first
British
country
to
adopt
old
age pensions.
As
early
as
1883,
interest
in
the
subject having
been
aroused
by
the
discussions
in
England,
the
head of
the
old
"continuous
ministry"
proposed
a
contributory
scheme,
but
he did not
press
it.
Outside
parliament
various
other
schemes
were
widely
debated,
and
in
1894
a
committee
of
the House
recommended
the
appointment
of
a
royal
commission
to
study
the
question.
The
government
did not act on this
advice,
and
it seemed to
have
forgotten
the matter until the
eve of the
general
election
of 1896.
Then the
premier,
Richard
Seddon,
surprised
parliament
and
the
country by introducing
a
hastily
drafted bill for old
age
pensions.
It
was a clever
tactical
move that
helped
him
out of
a
difficult
political
position.
The
opposition
had
waxed
strong
and his
cabinet
had
just
been
weakened
by
the
departure
of
Reeves.
A
hostile
amendment
forced
him to
withdraw the
bill,
but he
carried the issue
to
the
hustings
and
the voters sustained him.
Doubts of his
sincerity
disappeared
when
he reintroduced the
bill
in the
following
year.
Again
it encountered
strenuous
objections, principally
because
he insisted
on
paying
the
pensions
out
of
tax
receipts,
and
again
he
withdrew it.
But