The executive of the Fabian Society issued a manifesto congratulating the government on this "progressive" settlement, though few prominent labor leaders were willing to give it their full indorsement.

The Fabian manifesto said that the advance in wages which could be secured by the settlement "will undoubtedly have been secured on the trade-union program, through the trade-union organization, by the trade union's representatives, and finally, in the argument before the arbitrator, by the ability of the trade union's secretary." But this settlement had nearly all the features of the Canadian law which I have just mentioned, and especially in failing to give any recognition to the unions, left the strongest possible weapon in the hands of their enemies.

Nevertheless, more than a third of the members of the British Trade Union Congress voted since that time for a compulsory arbitration act, and British radicals like Percy Alden, M.P., to say nothing of conservatives, agitate for a law along New Zealand lines.

The railway strike of 1911 has decreased the popularity of this proposal among unionists and Socialists, but has augmented it in still greater proportion among nearly all other classes.
In the meanwhile, in spite of the employees' efforts, and external concessions by the employers, the power in the newest railway conciliation scheme lies also in the hands of the government (see Part III, Chapter V).
Statements by President Taft and other influential Americans lead us to believe it will be a very short period of years before similar legislation is applied to this country, in spite of the hostility of the unions, or perhaps with the consent of some of the weaker among them, which have little to gain by industrial warfare.

While Secretary of War, Mr.Taft predicted a controversy between capital and labor which should decide once and for all how capital and labor should share the joint profits which they created.