It is now admitted without any reservation that the Judge’s legal training is invaluable to the Court. If it was not for his presence, attempts would probably have been made to bring the Court into contempt. At first the President had repeatedly to check actions that had that tendency. “No Judge appointed merely for the purpose of the Act,” Judge Backhouse, of Victoria,[errata 1] said, “would be accepted; the head of the Court must be a Judge of the Supreme Court actually taking part in the work of that Court.”
It has been stated before that there is a wide difference of opinion in regard to the effect of the Act on the colony’s industries. Its opponents have given instances to show that its influence has been harsh and bad for trades upon which it has operated. It must be admitted, however, that much of the ill-will displayed towards the Act in these years finds a source in the prejudice created at its birth. Almost every unprejudiced investigator of standing who has come to the colony to see it in operation has spoken in its favour.
The most exhaustive inquiry was made by Judge Backhouse, and he reported to the Victorian Government, under whose instructions he visited the colony, that “the Act, notwithstanding its faults, has been productive of good. It has prevented strikes of any magnitude, and has, on the whole, brought about a better relation between employers than would exist if there were no Act. A very large majority of the employers of labour whom I interviewed are in favour of the Act. Only one did I meet who said out and out ‘I would rather repeal it and have a straight stand-up fight,’ and he, in a letter, has considerably modified his statement.”
A Royal Commission on Factories, sent to the colony from Victoria, praised the Act highly.
Within the colony, a prominent member of the Canterbury Employers’ Association, a deep student of all questions touching the relationship between labour and capital, and an employers’ representative at one of the largest disputes the Court has held, has said that he did not think that any employer in New Zealand would willingly revert to the method of settling disputes by strikes and lock-outs. “Every
