The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1911. LABOUR WAR AND PEACE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 209, 2 September 1911, Page 4

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

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1911. LABOUR WAR AND PEACE.

For the cause that lact» aasutonee. For the u-rong thai itceds re#wt««»o», For the future in the distanoe, A.ni the good that toe cmn do.

An estimate of the los-es attendant on the colliery strike which has b.'rn in progress for ten months in >o;nh Wales fixes the total at no >ss than £3.000.000. But enormous as these figures are. they can give no idea of the material injury inflicted upon the -commerce and industry of the whole country by the dislocation of one of its s;ap!e trades; nor do they supply any adequate measure of the Tiarm ?,>ne :n ways that cannot even be indicated in figures—the misery endured by the starving and destitute whom this lamentable struggle has reduced to penury. No wonder that th<> feelings of mutual hostility between Labour and Capital, which engender strikes, are aggravated and intensified by these bitter conflicts, and that the workers at Home, realising that the loss and suffering entailed by strikes react mainly upon themselves, are castling about for some means of settling industrial disputes that shall spare them the dread necessity of using the weapon which, in the last resort, is the only means of defence that they can employ. It is a noteworthy fart that while strikes have been frequent and extensive in England of late, there never has been a period in industrial history when arbitration and have been so frequently appealed to, or so successfully invoked by the workers. A few days ago we were informed by our cables that Mr Askwith. the official conciliator of the Board of Trade, had settled no less than six serious strikes an one week, i According to a report recently issued by the British Labour Department, while

wages have increased during the past twelve months bv £ 14,500 weekly, or

over £7r>o.ooo a year, as compared with the previous two years, vo less than seventy per pent of these increases have been secured by conciliation boards and private arbitration. It is not strange, therefore, that the workers at Home ar= beginning to realise that arbitration and conciliation, judiciously employed, are their most u-seful alies: and a most significant sign of this change of feeling is the bill submitted this -week to Parliament by Mr Will Crooks enacting penalties for strikes and lovk-outs. and punishing all incitement thereto, unless the causes of dispute have first been submitted to investigation by a special commission to be appointed by the Board of Trade.

This is, indeed, an encouraging proof that the arbitration movement is making rapid headway at Home-, and our readers may hare noted that our H'gh Commissioner, in an interview, has recently th? Labour party to promote the adoption of a system of compulsory arbitration similar to our ow-n. Uniorfcoiutfelj", Sew Zealand's record in this respect has not been, by any means so «tis£*etory ofUiXM i**t> tost friends of -Qjwworker* and of 'indastrial. peace, codd desire. HtW-jErSfißflWßina^ort

written a series of articles, in which ho advocates compulsory arbitration, and points to the experience of New Zealand as evidence in its favour. It is true that the industrial history of New Zealand during the past twenty years corroborates very emphatically all that W. Hall Jones and Mr Reeves claim for the arbitration system. But we cannot ignore the unpleasant truth that the labour organisations in New Zealand are now engaged in undoing this good work, bv destroying the system that has don? so much for them. The effects of permission to cancel registration under the Act have been, from our potint of view, unfortunate in the extreme. For many unions, discontented with awards or dissatisfied with the conditions of labour or rates of wages they have secured through the Arbitration Court, are now dissociating themselves from the system. Our own opinion is that th s step is bernf taken in most cases on impulse, without careful consideration of its consequences, and that it will have a disastrous effect upon the position of the workers before long. T"':t there is nt i doubt that this movement cs discrediting and paralysing the arbitration system ] and this, in our opinion, is in every way regrettable. New Zea:aTid pioneered th' wav for the whole world by est lblishin?. arbitration on a sound basis, and il will be an imfinite pity if, just when other I countries are beginning to follow our lea J. our workers should show signs of reject- ! ing or repudiating the system simply be- , cause, though it has done so much for them, it cannot give them all that they j ; expect and dtmani.