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Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXXI, Issue XXXXI, 16 June 1920, Page 8

"The corner stone of New Zealand's social legislation is the law of Compulsory Arbitration (1894)' for the settlement of trade disputes," states the French Mission which visited New Zealand last year. "According to the ideas of its authors, this law was not only designed for the composition, without resort to strikes, of a limited class of disputes between employers and employees, it was also imagined that the machinery for conciliation which was to precede appeals to arbitration would lead to an amicable settlement of the greater number of disputes. Experience has shown, however, that these attempts at conciliation have not yielded the anticipated results; but, on the contrary, appeals to arbitration have assumed an unexpected importance. Arbitral decisions given in particular cases have become law,, and have been extended by analogy to the entire working conditions of the country, in such a way that numerous questions, such as the minimum wage, the maximum working hours, etc., are not regulated by statute, but by the Arbitration Court, lhis legislation, therefore, has played a. very important part in the economic jmd social-life--of New- Zealand during itne last twenty-five years."