Moreover, the conservative groups in parliament and the employers emphasised that with regard to society’s best, the state would have to be allowed to intervene in the dealings of the parties to an agreement.The contractual relationship was not a private matter for the actors on a free market. In this respect, basic differences were revealed regarding the view on legislation between the Conservative Party on the one hand, and the Liberals and Social Democrats on the other. In the parliamentary debate of 1910, employers and Conservatives supported the fundamental view that legislation must tread very carefully and only take up those guidelines that had been drawn up during the conflicts on the labour market during the most recent decades. Legislation should followand adapt itself to already established patterns. Left-wing members of parliament such as Karl Staaff, Assar Åkerman and Gustaf Sandström reflected a completely different view, namely, that in the first place one should wait with legislation until the government had formulated political guidelines that could be used to change society.Thus, one criticised the conservative view of lawmaking that aimed at trying to achieve as little change as possible in the actual power situation that was customary on the market and by doing so confirm the lack of equality between the labour market parties. A large number of Social Democratic members of parliament showed a deep distrust not only of labour law legislation but above all of the situation that obligatory arbitration at a labour court would be led by professional jurists with judges’ competence. However, one can note that even in the debate of 1911, some Social Democrats, including the chairman of LO, Herman Lindqvist, left an opening for the establishment of a labour court with a substantial influence from professional jurists.The Liberal members who expressed an opinion on the subject, many of which were jurists, did not share the deep distrust of jurists that the Social Democrat held. Instead, they were in favour of the proposal for a labour court.The conservative groups in parliament p a r t i v, c h a p t e r 8 226
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