c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 253 held that voluntary arbitration did not constitute the final building block of the Swedish system of collective self-regulation. However, that alliance was now starting to crack. During the 1920s, it was primarily liberal and moderate members of the parliament who sped up the legislative process concerning mandatory arbitration in legal disputes involving labour law. At the 1921 parliament, Hjalmar von Sydow repeated the demand for mandatory arbitration in accordancewith the Danish model.513Several privatemember bills were initiated about further measures to preserve industrial peace, which led to the government setting up a commission.514 During the debate in the 1921 parliament, again differences of opinion emerged within the Social Democratic Party.These had been hinted at by Lindqvist’s role in the proposal of 1916 and by Östen Undén’s statements in the same issue in1920. On the one side, several speakers rejected the demand for a labour court. Sigfrid Hansson stated that the Danish example of Voldgiftsretten was not much more than a straw that could not reduce strikes. Referring to statements made by the chairman of the Danish Labour Court, Carl Ussing, Hansson argued that only increased industrial democracy could give the workers an increased sense of responsibility and by doing so serve industrial peace.515 Assar Åkerman referred to the massive resistance of the workers to the proposed bills of 1910 and1911 and claimed that all attempts to legislate about mandatory arbitration would be met with great suspicion by the workers.516 Ernst Wigforss (1881-1977), who in 1923 would contribute to a proposal for industrial democracy and the establishment of worker’s councils patterned on the German model, argued that the proposed act risked depriving the workers of their “liberty of action” in negotiations with employers.517 513 MFK1921:132 (von Sydow). See also LU2 1921:34, pp. 1-6 and AK1921:45, pp. 55-58. 514 Rskr 1921:345. 515 FK1921:45, pp. 40-46. 516 AK1921:45, pp. 67-68. 517 FK1921:45, p. 75.
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