compensation and expenses shall be paid by the Treasurer of State upon warrants drawn by the Auditor upon itemized and verified accounts of time spent and expenses paid. All such accounts, except those of the Commissioners, shall be certified as correct by the Commissioners, or one of them, and the accounts of the Commissioners shall be certified by the Secretary of the Commission. It is hereby declared to be the policy of this act that the arbitrations and investigations provided for in it shall be conducted with all reasonable promptness and dispatch, and no meinber of any Board of Arbitration shall be allowed payment for more than fifteen days' service in any one arbitration, and no Commissioner shall be allowed payment for more than ten days' service in the making of the investigation provided for in section 14 and sections following.

SEC. 18. For the payment of the salary of the Secretary of the Commission, the compensation of the Commissioners and other arbitrators, the traveling and hotel expenses herein authorized to be paid, and for witness fees, printing, stationery, postage, telegrams and office expenses there is hereby appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of five thousand dollars for the year 1897 and five thousand dollars for the year 1898.

IDAHO.

The following bill, having remained with the governor more than ten secular days after the legislature adjourned, became a law March 20, 1897.

An Act to provide for a State Board of Arbitration, for the Settlement of Differences between Employees and their Employers and to provide for Local Boards of Arbitration subordinate thereto.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Idaho :

SECTION 1. The Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall, on or before the fourthday of March, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, appoint three competent persons to serve as a State board of Arbitration and Conciliation in the manner hereinafter provided. One of them shall be an employer or selected from some association representing employers of labor; one of them shall be selected from some labor organization and not an employer of labor; the third shall

be appointed upon the recommendation of the other two; Provided, however, That if the two appointed do not agree on the third man at the expiration of thirty days, he shall then be appointed by the Governor. On or before the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint three members of said board in the manner above provided; one to serve for six years; one for four years; and one for two years; or until their respective successors are appointed; and on or before the fourth day of March of each year during which the legislature of this State is in its regular biennial session thereafter, the Governor shall in the same manner appoint one member of said board to succeed the member whose term then expires and to serve for the term of six years or until his successor is appointed. If a vacancy occurs at any time, the Governor shall in the same manner appoint some one to serve out the unexpired term; and he may in like manner remove any member of said board. Each member of said board shall, before entering upon the duties of his office, be sworn to a faithful discharge thereof. They shall at once organize by the choice of one of their members as chairman. Said board shall choose one of its members as secretary and may also appoint and remove a clerk of the board, who shall receive pay only for time during which his services are actually required and that at a rate of not more than four dollars per day during such time as he may be employed.

SEC. 2. The board shall, as soon as possible after its organization, establish such rules of procedure as shall be approved by the Governor and Senate.

SEC. 3. Whenever any controversy or difference, not involving questions which may be the subject of a suit at law or bill in equity, exists between an employer, whether an individual, co-partnership or corporation, and his employees if at the time he employs not less than twenty-five persons in the same general line of business in any city or town or village or county in this State, the board shall upon application as hereinafter provided, and as soon as practicable thereafter, visit the locality of the dispute and make careful inquiry into the cause thereof, hear all persons interested therein who may come before them, advise the respective parties what, if anything, ought to be done or submitted to by either or both to adjust said dispute, and make a written decision thereof. This decision shall at once be made

public, shall be recorded upon proper books of record to be kept by the secretary of said board, and a short statement thereof published in the annual report hereinafter provided for, and the said board shall cause a copy thereof to be filed with the County Recorder of the county where such business is carried on.

SEC. 4. Said application shall be signed by said employer or by a majority of his employees in the department of the business in which the controversy or difference exists, or their duly authorized agent or by both parties and shall contain a concise statement of the grievance complained of, and a promise to continue in the business or at work without any lockout or strike until the decision of said board if it shall be made in three weeks of the date of filing said application, when an application is signed by an agent claiming to represent a majority of such employees, the board shall satisfy itself that such agent is duly authorized in writing to represent such employees, but the names of the employees giving such authority shall be kept secret by said board. As soon as may be after the receipt of said application, the secretary of said board shall cause public notice to be given of the time and place for the hearing thereof; but public notice need not be given when both parties to the controversy join in the application and present therewith a written request that no public notice be given. When such request be made, notice shall be given to the parties interested in such manner as the board may order and the board may, at any stage of the proceedings, cause public notice to be given, notwithstanding such request. Should the petitioner or petitioners fail to perform the promise made in said application, the board shall proceed no further thereupon without the written consent of the adverse party. The board shall have the power to summons as witness any operative in the departments of business affected, and any person, who keeps the records of wages earned in those departments and to examine them under oath and to require the production of books containing the record of wages paid. Summons may be signed and oaths administered by any member of the board.

SEC. 5. Upon the receipt of such application and after such notice, the board shall proceed as before provided and render a written decision which shall be open to public inspection shall be recorded upon the records of the board and published at the discretion of the same, in an annual report to be made to the

Governor of the State on or before the first day of February of each year.

SEC. 6. Said decision shall be binding upon the parties who join in said application for six months, or until either party has given the other notice in writing of his intention not to be bound by the same at the expiration of sixty days therefrom. Said notice may be given to said employees by posting the same in three conspicuous places in the shop or factory, mill or at the mine where they work or are employed.

SEC. 7. The parties to any controversy or difference as described in Section 3 of this act may submit the matters in dispute, in writing to a local board of arbitration and conciliation, such board may either be mutually agreed upon, or the employer may designate one of the arbitrators, the employees or their duly authorized agent, another, and the two arbitrators so designated may choose a third, who shall be chairman of the board. Such board shall, in respect to the matters referred to it, have and exercise all the powers which the state board might have and exercise, and its decision shall have whatever binding effect may be agreed by the parties to the controversy in the written submission.

The jurisdiction of such board shall be exclusive in respect to the matters submitted to it, but it may ask and receive the advice and assistance of the state board. The decision of such board shall be rendered within ten days of the close of any hearing held by it; such decision shall at once be filed with the recorder of the county in which the controversy or difference arose, and a copy thereof shall be forwarded to the state board. Each of such arbitrators shall be entitled to receive from the treasury of the county in which the controversy or difference that is the subject of the arbitration exists, if such payment is approved in writing by the board of commissioners of such county, the sum of three dollars for each day of actual service, not exceeding ten days for any one arbitration, whenever it is made to appear to the mayor of a city or the board of commissioners of a county that a strike or lockout such as described in Section 8 of this act is seriously threatened or actually occurs, the mayor of such city or the board of commissioners of such county shall at once notify the state board of the facts.

SEC. 8. Whenever it shall come to the knowledge of the state board, either by notice from the mayor of a city or the

board of commissioners of a county, as provided in the preceding section or otherwise, that a strike or lockout is seriously threatened or has actually occurred in any county or town of the State, involving an employer and his present or past employees, if at the time he is employing, or up to the occurrence of the strike or lockout was employing not less than twenty-five persons in the same general line of business in any county or town in the State, it shall be the duty of the State board to put itself in communication as soon as may be with such employer, and employees, and endeavor by mediation to effect an amicable settlement between them, or to endeavor to persuade them; Provided, That a strike or lockout has not actually occurred or is not then continuing, to submit the matters in dispute to a local board of arbitration and conciliation, as above provided, or to the State board; and said State board may, if it deems it advisable, investigate the cause or causes of such controversy, and ascertain which party thereto is mainly responsible or blameworthy for the existence or continuance of the same, and may make and publish a report finding such cause or causes and assigning such responsibility or blame. The board shall have the same powers for the foregoing purposes as are given it by Section 3 of this act.

SEC. 9. Witnesses summoned by the State board shall be allowed the sum of fifty cents for each attendance, and the sum of twenty-five cents for each hour of attendance in excess of two hours, and shall be allowed five cents, a mile for travel each way from their respective places of employment or business to the place where the board is in session. Each witness shall certify in writing the amount of his travel and attendance, and the amount due him shall be paid forthwith by the board, and for such purpose the board shall be entitled to draw from the treasury of the State for the payment thereof any of the unappropriated moneys of the State.

SEC. 10. The members of said state board shall be paid six dollars per day for each day that they are actually engaged in the performance of their duties, to be paid out of the treasury of the State, and they shall be allowed their necessary traveling and other expenses, which shall be paid out of the treasury of the State.