The Press. TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 1903. THE AUCKLAND FURNITURE TRADE DISPUTE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11569, 28 April 1903, Page 4

The Press. TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 1903. THE AUCKLAND FURNITURE TRADE DISPUTE.

The decision given by the President of the Arbitration Court on Saturday in what is known as the Auckland Furniture Trade dispute is characterised by all the clearheadedness ar.d judicial spirit which have made Mr Justice Cooper so eminently successful in his important office. His Honour, by a dry recital of tho facts, cleared away a good deal of the atmosphere of exaggerated feeling which lias surrounded the case from the beginning. The Arbitration Court had made an award raising the minimum wages of cabinet-makers from ls Id to ls 3d. Thereupon two firms considered it necessary to reorganise their staffs, and gave instructions to their foremen to withhold work from men 17110, they considered, could not be profitably employed at ls 3d, until they had obtained permits to work for less than tho minimum rate of wages. Out of some 250 or 300 workers affected by the. award, onfly thirteen men in one firm and four in another were suspended. Counsel for the Union spoke of this action as if it were a wholesale "lock-out," a concerted piau of tho employers to nullify the award, and a determined attempt to wreck the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The cool common-sense of Mr Justice Cooper has effectually disposed of all this absurd and inflated rhetoric. His Honour has held that the employer- have done what they are legally and reasonably entitled to do, and he has dismissed tlie applications. He entirely disagrees with the suggestion made by counsel for the applicants that in these -proceedings the Act k on its triol, or that an adverse decision of the Court would emasculate the award. Ou the contrary, his Honour "entertains no doubt as to tho "power and jurisdiction of tho Court to "effectively enforce its awards, and to "carry out in all matters within its jnris- " diction the true intent, meaning, and "spirit of the statute." Tin's emphatic declaration ought to reassure th© minds of those excited persons who have been declaring that the Act is being "undermined," and that fresh legislation is necessary in order to bring the unfortunate employers -till more into subjection. It is a necessary corollary to the fixing of a minimum wage- that employers tshafll at least have reserved to them, the liberty of saying whether a particular workman is or is not worth that minimum wage, and of dispensing with his services if he is not -allowed a permit to engage himself at What is his real worth in the market. If employers were compelled to keep on at ls 3d an hour men who are Teally worth

only- Is Id. it would be an act of gross tyranny, while, if persisted iv, would certainly land the employer in tho Bankruptcy Court unices he could manage to get out- of his business altogether. Even the most extreme Socialist, we presume, would not go so far aa to say that a master must not be allowed to give up his business if he finds he can no longer carry it on at a profit. Similarly, if industries are to ba carried on at all in this colony employers must bo allowed to dispense with any workman whose services are no longer profitable.