THE NEW SYSTEMThe formalisation of industrial relations had marked a sort of half-way house between the individualism of autonomous regulation and the collective responsibility of the mature systems that were to emerge in the years following the end of the Great Depression. As we have indicated, the process of transformation was slow and, in reality, the institutions of formalised industrial relations endured somewhat insecurely whilst their quality remained characteristically very ‘informal.’ Many of the conciliation boards that had grown out of the ‘craze’ of the sixties and seventies disappeared in the depression of the eighties. And in London the mutual negotiation that had been established in 1872 remained a matter of quiet, unceremonious and irregular contacts between the officials of the employers' association and of the unions. Not until 1892 was a permanent committee of the Central Association of Master Builders created to handle the on-going, day-to-day negotiations with the unions; and only in 1896 did systematic conciliation structures begin to emerge. This experience was typical; it was the nineties that saw the seeds of formalisation blossom into a recognisably modern system of industrial relations whose extent and comprehensiveness clearly distinguished it from the structures that had dominated the previous twenty years.In the first place, there was a sharp expansion in the number of collective agreements which regulated industrial relations in the industry from just over 100 in 1890 to around eight times that number in 1910.