A careful investigation by Mr.von Dalezman, the Registrar-General, shows that, while the average wages increased from 1895 to 1907 in the ratio of 84.8 to 104.9, the cost of food increased in the ratio of 84.3 to 103.3.No calculation was attempted for clothing or rent." If we take it into account that rents have risen very rapidly and are especially complained of by the working people, we can see that real wages, measured by their purchasing power, probably fell in the first twelve years of compulsory arbitration, notwithstanding that it was on the whole a period of prosperity in the Colony.

For ten years, as a consequence, the complaints of the workers against the decisions have been growing, "not because the wages were reduced, but because they were not increased and because other demands were not granted." When the unions perceived that the principles for which they have been contending were not granted, and that their material conditions were not being improved, it was suggested that the judge of the Arbitration Court should be elected by the people, in the hope that the unions might control the election, "but this would be at variance with all British traditions and could not be brought about," say our authors.

No doubt British tradition has had something to do with the matter, but the impracticability of this remedy is much more due to the fact that the employees confront an agricultural and middle class majority.
At first it was the employers who were displeased, but now they are becoming converted.

The employers, say Le Rossignol and Stewart, "have come to realize that they might have lost more by strikes than they have ever lost by arbitration; and, since the workers have been dissatisfied, the employers are more disposed to stand by the act, or to maintain a neutral attitude, waiting to see what the workingmen will do." It would seem, then, that the real gain from the law has been through the abolition of strike losses, and since these had previously been borne by employers and employees alike, this saving has been pretty equally divided between the two classes, neither making any relative gain over the other.

But at the bottom this is a blow to the unions, for the purpose of every union policy is not merely to leave things where they were before, but to increase the workers' relative share.