Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE ARBITRATION SYSTEM OF NEW SOUTH WALES Contrast With Victoria The state of New South Wales, the largest in the Australian Commonwealth, commercially, industrially, and in respect to population, presents a system of wage- fixing very different from that of Victoria. From 1901 onward it has endorsed compulsory arbitration, from the principle of which it has never departed. But step by step, methods of conciliation have been added to the original machinery. Wages Boards, though not on the Victorian model nor comparable in scope and method, were added in 1908. In 1912 the office of Industrial Commissioner was created to allow of the calling together in conference of parties between whom a dispute had arisen. At the same time, Conciliation Committees were authorized for major occupations or callings employing more than five hundred men. In the recent amending Act of 1918 more extended provisions for the principle of conciliation were adopted. Thus the trend of the administration of compulsory arbitration in New South Wales has brought this state nearer, in principle at least, to the Victorian system. Yet significant differences exist between the two states, affecting the nature and results of their industrial laws and the mode of their administration. Neglect of these differences leads students of social affairs to institute comparisons which are invalid, and vitiates conclusions concerning the two systems. New South Wales differs from Victoria, first, in the number and composition of its working population. The Commonwealth Statistician estimates that in the years 1913 and 1914 the average number of persons in receipt of wages or salary in New South Wales was 453,600; in Victoria, 3465800.1 The factory population of the former Commonwealth Labour Report, No. ...