Sources: Because of the difficulty of obtaining information from employer organizations the following discussion is based on sketchy press reports of employer conferences, minutes of evidence of various Royal Commissions, transcripts of Arbitration Court hearings, annual reports of the pastoralists' and the builders' and contractors' organizations, fragmentary collections of other employer associations' reports lodged in various public libraries, and finally, editorial reports in "conservative" newspapers (the Melbourne Argus and the Sydney Morning Herald) which best reflected employers' viewpoints. (See P. G. Macarthy, "The Harvester Judgement—an Historical Assessment", Ph.D. thesis, 1967, pp. 280-2.)
2.
"Labour and the Living Wage 1890-1910", The Australian Journal of Politics and History, April 1967.
3.
B. Fitzpatrick , The British Empire in Australia ( Melbourne, 1941), p. 300 fn. For similar response by the coal-owners see pp. 286-9.
4.
Victorian Year Book1964, pp. 474-6.
5.
The coal-mine owners' organization.
6.
T.A. Coghlan , Labour and Industry in Australia ( Oxford, 1918), Vol. IV, p. 2104.
7.
Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 2036.
8.
J. Hagen, Printers and Politics, a History of the Australian Printing Unions 1850-1951 , p. 111.
9.
Commonwealth Parliament Debate 1903, Vol. XV, p. 3207. For further contemporary evidence see Victoria Parliament Debate 1901, Vol. 97, p. 723; Queensland Worker, August 31, 1901; and the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Shops and Factories (Victoria) for 1901, p. 8.
10.
Worker, April 11, 1907.
11.
Age, July 2, 1906; for other examples see Argus, August 23, 1906 (flour milling), and October 1, 1906 (traders and grocers).
12.
Melbourne Trades Hall Council minutes, August 9, 1901, October 11, 1901, November 14, 1901, June 23, 1901, August 8, 1902, November 16, 1900; and Commonwealth Court of Conciliation, Federated Tanners and Leather Dressers Employees' Union Case (1914), transcript of proceedings, pp. 6-7.
13.
P.G. Macarthy , "Justice Higgins and the Harvester Judgement", AustralianEconomic History Review, March 1969, pp. 26-7.
14.
This was the employers' grouse. In fact, only a very small proportion of wage-earners came under Arbitration Court awards or wages board determinations.
15.
Royal Commission on the Tariff, 1905-1906, minutes of evidence , p. 2221. For other examples see pp. 2193, 2401, 2435, 2515, 2520, 2522, 2213.
16.
Royal Commission on Strikes, 1891, minutes of evidence, Q502.
17.
Ibid., Q488.
18.
Coghlan, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 2104.
19.
Australian Employers' Federation Conference Report, 1905, p. 8.
20.
Ibid.
21.
P.G. Macarthy , "Victorian Wages Boards: Their Origins and the Doctrine of the Living Wage", Journal of Industrial Relations , Vol. 10, No. 2, July 1968.
22.
Ian Campbell , "Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups in Australia (1900-1905)", M.A. thesis, University of Sydney, 1958, p. 148.
23.
Eighth Convention of the Federated Master Builders' Association of Australia, June 1904, Vol. 1, p. 441.
24.
Australian Employers' Federation, p. 18.
25.
Age, May 14, 1906. True to this stated intention, the first major case brought before the Commonwealth Court other than those concerned with shipping company employees was challenged—partly successfully—in the High Court. See 10 C.A.R. 1, Australian Boot Trade Employees' Federation v. Whybrow and Others (1910). For the High Court Appeal see 10 C.R.L. 266.
26.
Information collected from the Records of the Registrar of the Commonwealth Court. Contrast this policy with employers' registration under the N.S.W. Industrial Arbitration Act of 1901, N.S.W. Statistical Register 1904, Section "Industrial Wages", Table 23; also Employers' Federation of N.S.W. Annual Report, 1905, pp. 2-4.
27.
Macarthy, "Justice Higgins", pp. 19-24.
28.
Worker, August 5, 1909.
29.
Ibid., August 15, 1909.
30.
Ibid., October 13, 1910.
31.
A.G.L. Shaw, The Story of Australia (London, 1954 ), p. 203.
