ficiently aroused and organized, and on the
point of a national strike, a settlement was entered into through the
efforts of Mr. Lloyd George and the Board of Trade (and it is said with
the assistance of King Edward) which involved an entirely new principle
for that country. A board was constituted to settle this and future
strikes of which the Master of Rolls and other British functionaries
were the leading elements. Actually the workers consented for several
years to leave in the hands of the judges over whose election and
appointment they have only an indirect and partial, if indeed any,
control, complete power over their industrial life. 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 be