EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATION.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11749, 25 November 1903, Page 5

EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATION.

RECENT LABOUR LEGISLATION. The quarterly meet ing of the Canterbury Employers' .Association was held last night." The president, Mr Gilbert. Anderson, and there were about twenty members present. Mr H. Field, secretary of tlie Wellington Association and of the Vigilance Committee, was also present. Apologies wens received from Messrs F. Waymouth, J. A. Frostick, and A. W. Bt'aven. Tho report, for the four months ending October 31st Mated that the executive had met stve?n times since the beginning of the financial year in July. The secretary's advice and assistance bad been asked for and given to the representatives of several trade*, hitherto free from trouble, but which had been compelled to face demands made by the workers' unions. Of the eighteen new members admitted during the period under review, nine were fellmongers. The revised scale of subscriptions had given general satisfaction. The employers In the tanning, fellmongery, and wool scouring trades formed themselves into a union, and joined the Association us a trade section, resulting in an increase e.f the membership of tho Association. The eraplove-rs in the catering and hotel businesses also orgauired, and became a trado sett-ion of the Association. There are now seven trade organisations attached to the Association us sections, nnd most of the work connected with these sect ions was done by the secretary of the Aswiation. The Bills Committee had communicated with the Vigilance Committee respecting the Workers' Compensation fur Accident*. Arbitration Court Emergency. nnd other Bills. Some very imDortant work had been done by the Vigilance Committee. Tlie Imprisonment for Debt Limitation Bill, for which the fcmplovers' Federation was largely responsible, provides that the debtor must prove that he nas not the money to pay his obligations, instead of, as at present, the creditor having to prove that the debtor has money to pay in his possession. Owing to the action taken by the Vigilance Committee, tho Arbitration Court Emergency Bill had been altered, requiring the President of the Court, in the absence of the employers' representative, to request the Employers' Associations in the four largfs centres to nominate a fit person to act as his deputy. Employers' Associations, by the passing of tlie measure, had become recognised in a manner they had never been before The report also dealt with other Labour Bills, and indicated the amendments effected through the action of the Vigilance Committee, made to the Employers Federation Conference, and it was stated that the Conference had approved of a lengthy letter, submitted by Mr Field, and addressed to the editor of "The Times," London, controverting a number of statements made by the Vernier, in a letter to the same paper, on labour legislation. w! „ n 11* Chairman, in moving the f-doptoon of the report, .aid the Association was doing excellent work, but it was felt that employers as a -whole-did not fully realise Jhe P righS of employers and the principle „ individual liberty, or *bey dmuld have every employer of labour, and for *atjnatter everyone in the district who valued mdividual liberty as members. The small nclSn of members, while satisfactory, Sd«« be considered as an indication that employer* were sufficiently alive to the necessity of orgauisatwo or the dangers ahead of tlftm. That the workers were alive to the advantages which they were deriving from, and hoped to carry by, oraMis-tion was patent from tlie sacrifices they were -inking. The employer, on the other band, was too timid or too indifferent, and for want of combination,was allowing things to drift. How great was the drift wluc-h had taken place in the short space of time since the passing of tne Co-c-ialkn. and Arbitration Act was scarcely realised. When the Act was Passed it was considered that if strikes could he prevented a great amount of loss and suffering would be stopped, not out of consideration to those who caused the strikes, but because of the far-reaching effects on those who were in no way parties to them. Anything farther than this would not have been heard of, nor would anyone have dreamt that ou'b of this apparently well meaning Act they would have soon arrived at the present state of affairs. In place of a state of affair* where a man was master of his own enterprise, where he «Ould devote his energies to the development of that enterprise in which he sunk his capital and ability, entering into an open agreement, with such free members of the State as chose to enter his employ, where everyone was free to carry on his own business according to his own individual effort, and where man met man cither as an employer or employee on the ground of his own natural rights and freedom to do and act his best, we had got to a state of affairs that in each year there was an average of 100 cases of dispute before the Coneiiliatkm and Arbitration Court* of tlie colony. In some trades there was constant ferment, not because there was any disputes, but because the Union of Workers would not recognise the general advantages should be- given to Union* of