INDUSTRIAL PEACE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 257, 30 October 1928, Page 9

INDUSTRIAL PEACE.

MR. COATES TAKES CREDIT. ARBITRATION COURT AND FARMING. "You would do away with it!" was the accusation flung at the Prime Minister in the Town Hall last night, when he began to speak of the Arbitration Court. "No, I would not," countered Mr. Coates. "But I want to say the last Parliament would have done away with it if there had not been men who realised their duty to the people who sent them in. Those men were myself and my colleagues. "Now, we happen to know that a majority of men believed—at least, we didn't have a majority as a matter of fact, and it was never suggested in the House—but it was discussed from the point that the farmer had his costs fixed for him by the Court, whereas the falling prices were the result of worldwide economic conditions, and the falling prices left him unable to pay those fixed charges."

Mr. Coates said the Government had brought employer and worker together in a way that had never been managed before. Next year there would be another conference, which, he hoped, would give a resolution that would give confidence to all New Zealand's people. He instanced what had been done in connection with the sheep shearing industry, and reminded the audience that the shearers had decided to accept wages in conformity with the rise and fall of the market. These agreements were; all to the good, and everyone should be pleased and grateful for the Dominion's three years of industrial peace, conditions here having been much more favourable than in certain Australian Stat—, notably Qaeeuflaa^