In the United States the chief concern of unionists has been the conduct of industrial negotiations, but in New Zealand and Australia the significant achievements of workers, almost without exception, have been gained through political action. Around the turn of the century, students of labour movements were led by the successes of Australasian workers to speculate about the different roads which workers had taken there and in the United States. As its general political and economic features became familiar, particularly such prominent ones as factory codes and arbitration procedures, political unionism ceased to be a curious phenomenon, and students turned their eyes elsewhere. In so doing, they lost sight of the subterranean forces and directing currents which have turned the energies of workers toward politics.

Historically, the similarity between the United States and New Zealand is arresting. Both were frontier countries with fluid institutions and expanding economies, although New Zealand had no moving frontier as had the United States. Both were settled from England and inherited English legal and cultural traditions. Both early developed democratic political processes, and both were characterized by a high standard of living for workingmen as a result of the natural scarcity of labour typical of inaccessible and virgin countries. In both countries, the land offered an alternative to wage-earning which favoured social as well as occupational mobility. Both countries lacked the stratification of a traditional aristocracy. In both countries, extension of the franchise placed the political weapon in the hands of the people. The analogy is more than historical: today New Zealand and the United States are generally acknowledged to be among the leading nations of the world in terms of plane of living. What, then, explains the development in the United States of a system of collective bargaining by workers with their employers, and the growth in New Zealand of a system of bargaining vis-à-vis the state?