The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1903. ARBITRATION, COMPULSORY AND VOLUNTARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3, 3 January 1903, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1903. ARBITRATION, COMPULSORY AND VOLUNTARY.

For the cause tk»t lacke assistance

For the wrong Uaat needs resistane*

For the future in th« distance

And tlaa good that we e«m do.

Of all the legislative expedients devised to promote the welfare and protect the rights of the wage-earn-er in New Zealand, none lias been more salutary and more conclusive than our Conciliation and Arbitration system. . Yet it is a remarkable fact that both in England and the United States the great body of the workers regard compulsory arbitration with an invincible suspicion and dislike. At the last Trades Union Congress in England, •de , lega,tes representing a very large majority of workmen declared . against compulsory arbitration, and the. tone of their speeches showed clearly that they regarded the system not simply as a public spirited means of. avoiding strikes, .but as a weapon skilfully contrived and cunningly employed in the interests of Capital to the detriment of Labour. Prom the point of view of this colony, where compulsory arbitration has been justly and impartially aipplied, such a conception of it is the merest irrational superstition. But much as we regret that the system should be so little appreciated, the fact remains that in England and America neither employers not employees are, as a class, desirous of establishing any method for the settlement of industrial disputes similar

to our own

This unfortunate prejudice has just been clearly illustrated in connection with one of the most famous industrial conflicts •of the day. Lord Penrhyn has been embroiled with the workmen in his slate quarries for the last twenty years, and from 1897 to 1901 he settled the matter in his own favour by closing his quarries and throwing about 3000 men out of employment. The matter in dispute, as to whetheT Lord Penryhn should or should not recognise the unionist committees who professed to represent his employees, is, for our present purpose, of no special interest. The point is that, because of a difference of opinion between an. employer and his employees, a disastrous strike and lock-out have paralysed a flourishing trade and reduced to destitution many thousands of women and children. Under our system it would- have been possible any time during, this twenty years of industrial war to arrange some compromise by which the enormous loss to both employer and men would have been avoided. But the Act dealing, with trade disputes in England provides only for voluntary arbitration, and this Lord Penryhn has already declined. As a last resort an appeal has been made to the Board of Trade to insist upon the application of the Conciliation Act to the Penrhyn dispute. It is likely that if the workmen of England had shown thems.fc.lves favourable to compulsory arbitration efforts in this direction would long aigo have been made. As it is, the Board of Trade, knowing that the compulsory application of the principle is disapproved both by masters and men, has refused to take any steps, and the struggle has ended in ji nominal victory for Lord Penrvhn. The workers having tried

strikes, boycotts a.nd intimidation in vain, have, with the exception of a few score determined men, who preferred to emigrate, returned to the quarries, and the net effect of the struggle, may be summed up at a dead loss of several hundred thousands of pounds to England, to Lord Penrhyn and his employees. Yet all this might ha.ye been avoided if provision had been made as imder our own system for the recognition of the legal status of workmen's representatives and the insertion of a compulsory clause in the Conciliation Act,

As we have said, the prejudice against compulsory arbitration is not confined to England. In the United States," where the organisation of labour has advanced of late with giant strides, the feeling of the unions is unanimously opposed to our system. President'Mitchell, the hero of the great coal strike and the head of the Mine Workers' Amalgamated Unions, has declared that "the American labour movement is unalterably, opposed "to compulsory arbitration," and that he is in full accord with this opposition. "Compulsion and arbitration," he writes, "are in my judgment contradictory terms. Ido not believe that the,law should compel a man to work; in other words, I believe it to be contrary to the principles and traditions of free government to enact a law which would have the effect of placing , a working man, or a body of working men, in prison for refusing to work, and I cannot conceive of a compulsory arbitration law that would not jeopardise the liberty of the working men should they refuse to arbitrate or to accept the award of a Board of Arbitration." It i 9 somewhat consoling to learn that Mr Mitchell and his followers are strongly in favour of voluntary arbitration, but we can only regret that the system which JJew Zealand has worked so successfully should be so far misunderstoopd in England and America, and hope that the valuable work of Mr Reeves may dispel some of the ignorance and prejudice that surround this subject in other lands.