On 27 March, Marshall received a letter from Arthur Balfour, the nephew of the then Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, inviting him to join the Royal Commission on Labour. The setting up of the Commission had been announced by the Prime Minister during the previous February, because of a need to investigate a number of important issues in labour relations which had come into prominence during the late 1880s. Many of them arose from what is now described as the ‘new unionism’, that is, the replacement of the older, skilled craft unions with their generally conservative outlook on self-help and industrial disputation with the more militant, strike prone unskilled labour unions, of which the dockers were an outstanding example. The Commission's Final Report in 1894 concisely summarised the issues with which it was concerned in the following way:

1. (1) What are the leading causes of modern disputes between employers and employed; out of what conditions of industry do they arise; and what are the effects upon them of organisations on their side?

2. (2) By what means of institutions can they be prevented from arising, or if they do arise, can they be most pacifically settled without actual conflict in the shape of strikes or lock-outs?

3. (3) Can any of these causes of dispute be wholly or partially removed by practicable legislation, due regard being had to the general interests of the country?