The unions violently denounced this enactment, but chiefly as they had denounced previous legislation, on the ground that it permitted _unorganized_ workmen to apply for relief under the law. That is to say, while the employers were using the law to make striking a crime, they were extending such benefits as it produced to the nonunion workers who can often be used as tools for their purposes. But the astounding hold that "State Socialism" has on the Australian masses, especially on the working people, is shown by the steadfast belief that this measure can be amended so as to operate to their interest. Bowling and his unions made a serious agitation for the general strike against the coercive measure just mentioned, but it was only by a tie vote that the New South Wales Labour Congress even favored protest in the form of cancelling the agreement which the unions had made under the Industrial Disputes Acts, while in the next elections New South Wales returned a majority of labor representatives opposing Bowling's policy of radical protest. That is, the majority of the working people still express confidence in the possibilities of compulsory arbitration, and even want to extend it. Professor Le Rossignol of the United States and Mr. William D. Stewart of New Zealand have undertaken a careful and elaborate investigation of compulsory arbitration in New Zealand.[74] A reference to a few of their quotations from original documents will show the nature and possibilities of this coercive measure as it has developed in the country of its origin. The original law in New Zealand was introduced by the Honorable William Pember Reeves, the Minister of Labor, in 1894, and was supported by the labor leaders. Mr. Reeves says: "What the act was primarily passed to do was to put an end to the larger and more dangerous class of strikes and lockouts. The second object of the act's framer was to set up tribunals to regulate the conditions of labor."