CHAPTER 7—STA™% T™WTERFERENCE WITH
WAGES i. CANADA
Legislation for Settlement of Industrial Disputes
Fr [YHE recent minimum wage legislation for Canadian women was
I’ inspired, it has been said, more by the example across the
southern border than by that of Great Britain or Australasia.
But this does not apply to the first great Canadian experiment in the
field of State interference with industrial evils (although not in the
field of specific wage regulation), the law of 1907, instituting commissions
of inquiry for the settlement of conflicts in public utilities
services. The act was declared unconstitutional in January, 1925, by
decision of the House of Lords, acting for the British Empire; the
Dominion was declared incompetent to enact laws on these matters,
which are reserved to the provincial authorities. But since that time
new laws have been passed concurrently by the Federal Parliament
and by several provincial legislatures to reestablish application of the
provisions of the 1907 law. Under that law both parties are compelled
to postpone a strike or lockout until publication of the commission’s
report. Public opinion is thereby enabled to exercise its influence
against the party to the conflict which might be inclined to resist
the decision.? Strikes have been greatly restricted; more so, however,
during the first 10 years than later. There were strikes in 1918
and 1919 in railway services covered by the law.®
Compulsory arbitration in New Zealand and the above-cited
Canadian act have for a long time been considered by many as
superior to minimum wage administration by wage boards, it being
frequently argued that only arbitration or inquiry methods are
applicable to industries with strong trade-unionms, though Victoria
had included these industries in the scope of its wages boards legislation.
The Canadian experiment retains, therefore, its importance for
any comparison of minimum wage legislation.
The Province of Nova Scotia endeavored, after a strike in the coalmining
industry of the Province, to go beyond the scope of the general
law and to establish compulsory arbitration in services of public
necessity, but the law was repealed on March 15, 1926, by a new law
respecting the investigation of industrial disputes within the Province.*
The new act legalizes for the Province the provisions of the
Dominion act of 1907 as to investigation of industrial disputes.
1 Labor Legislation in Canada, 1926. Ottawa, 1927, p. 6.
* See Broda, R.: La Fixation Légale des Salaires, Paris, 1912, ch. 13. .
ts Broda, R.: Les Résultats de I'Application du Salaire Minimum Pendant et depuis Ia
uerre. Bern, 1921, .
+ Letter from the Deputy Provincial Secretary of Nova Scotia, dated Mar. 21, 1928.
