On the other side, the leading Social Democrat and government minister Gustav Möller (1884-1970), who was later to become one of the architects of the Swedish welfare state, was not as unsympathetic to a labour court. In the debate in 1921, to be sure, he stated that he was surprised that the Liberals contributed to measures that increased class antagonism.An explanation for this change, according to Möller, might be that the Liberals now consisted of many big farmers, at the same time as the agricultural workers had started to organise in unions.At the same time, he hinted at having an essentially favourable position to the idea of mandatory arbitration, but he noted that for the time being there was a massive opinion against such legislation. It was a matter, after all, of hundreds of thousands of workers, and one should be careful about giving fuel to possible accidental social fires in Sweden.518 His hesitation thus seemed to be at least in part of a tactical character. In a parliamentary debate in1925, however, Möller was even more in favour of legislation and stated that it could be conceivable that the parties of the labour market could accept mandatory arbitration, which would be to the advantage of society.519 The examples from the parliament from1920-25 support the view that there was a difference of opinion within the Social Democratic leadership concerning one of the most burning labour law questions of the time, at the same time as adherents to a labour court appeared to be anxious to listen to the movement and not go over the heads of the ordinary members. A further factor in this context was that the increased faith in the collective agreement as an instrument to regulate the individual employment contracts and industrial peace could now derive nourishment from the field of legal science.We have previously seen an example in Birger Ekeberg’s lectures from around1925that entailed support for the “combination” or “cumulative theory”, p a r t i v, c h a p t e r 9 254 518 AK1921:45, pp. 58-59. 519 FK1925:3, p. 5. Göransson 1988, pp. 212-213. See also Undén 1919, p. 296.
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