The Auckland Star WITH WHICH AND INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo and The Sun. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1927. ARBITRATION AND LABOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 277, 23 November 1927, Page 6

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH AND INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo and The Sun.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1927. ARBITRATION AND LABOUR.

For the cause that lack* assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the And the good that toe can

The Labour Bills Committee has dealt with the Arbitration Amendment Bill in rather drastic fashion. It has struck out all the clauses bearing on the suggested changes in the constitution of the Court, and has thereby greatly altered the character of the measure. But it has retained the clause providing for the exemption of the farming industries from the jurisdiction of the Court, and it has also retained the proposal for payment bv results. These are the two principal features of the Bill which render it obnoxious to Labour.

But 'vVhile Labour denounces any attempt to modify the constitution or powers of the Arbitration Court as . a more or less covert attack upon the interests of the workers, the Arbitration system is exposed to severe criticism of a' different kind from another quarter. A typical illustration of the views held by some of our leading employers and commercial organisations was supplied last week by an article in the Christchurch "Press." Taking as a text the evidence given by Professor Belshaw in defence of the Arbitration system before the Parliamentary Committee, the "Press" insists that the Arbitration Court has produced injurious effects upon industry and commerce here ever since its inception, and expresses a doubt whether the comparative immunity from strikes that we long enjoyed would have balanced "more than a fraction of the loss sustained through the lower standards of energy and production resulting from the Act."

A full discussion of the "Press" exposition of economic principles would fill far more space than we have at our disposal. But we must spare a little room for comments on our contemporary's lofty condemnation, of Professor Belshaw for daring to defend "a highly artificial interference with the natural laws of industry." It is to us simply amazing that anybody professing to speak with authority on such questions should talk about "the natural laws of industry" as if they were regulations that could not be broken. One of the nidimentary principles of economic study is the distinction to be drawn between "positive" laws of the Parliamentary type and "natural" laws which are laws only by courtesy, and are in reality only general statements of what usually happens under certain i conditions, unless we think it worth our while to prevent it.

This talk about "natural laws" in such a context belongs to the infancy of economic discussion. It would be just as reasonable to say that becausc the law of gravity is a "natural" law, therefore we ought never to prevent a fence or a building from falling down lest we should infringe this sacred principle. Surely the 'Tress" is aware that every law ever passed dealing with social or industrial or commercial conditions interferes with the operation of "natural" laws, and is intended to do so. We may note, too, that the 'Tress" reiterates the absurd doctrine that higher wages must result in "higher costs and higher prices," in spite of the practically unanimous testimony of American producers and employers to the contrary. Further, the 'Tress" insists that the high level of wages alone accounts for the depression of our primary industries, ignoring altogether such contributory factors as high land values and high mortgage charges.