"State Socialism"
nor even on a pioneer basis of economic democracy and approximate
equality of opportunity similar to that which prevailed during the
period of free land in our Western States.

Unmistakable signs show that in New Zealand an agrarian oligarchy by no
means friendly to labor has already established itself. Even the
compulsory arbitration act which bears anything but heavily on employers
in general, is not applied to agriculture. After two years of
consideration it was decided in 1908 that the law should not apply on
the ground that "it was impracticable to find any definite hours for the
daily work of general farm hands," and that "the alleged grievances of
the farm laborers were insufficient to justify interference with the
whole farming industry of Canterbury" (the district included 7000
farms). Whatever we may think of the first justification, the second
certainly is a curious piece of reasoning for a compulsory arbitration
court, and must be taken simply to mean that the employing farmers are
sufficiently powerful politically to escape the law. The working people
very naturally protested against this "despotic proceeding," which
denied such protection as the law gave to the largest section of workers
in the Dominion.

What is the meaning, then, of the victory of a "Labour Party" in
Australia? Chiefly that every citizen of Australia who has sufficient
savings is to be given a chance to own a farm. A large and prosperous
community of farmers is to be built up by government aid. Even without
"State Socialism" or labor reform the working people would share
temporarily in this prosperity as they did to a large degree in that of
the United States immediately after the Civil War, until the free land
began to disappear. It was impossible to pay exceptionally low wages to
a workingman who could enter into farming with a few months' notice.

The Labour Party hopes to use nationalization of monopolies and the
compulsory regulation of wages to insure permanently to the working
classes their share of the benefit of the new prosperity. How much
farther such measures will go when the agricultural element again
becomes dominant is the question. It is already evident that the
Australian reform movement, like that of New Zealand, includes, or at
least favors, the same class of employing farmers. The fact that a
Labour Party is in the opposition in New Zealand, while in Australia a
Labour Party has led in the reform