THE ATTACK ON THE ARBITRATION COURT.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12483, 20 April 1906, Page 6

THE ATTACK ON THE ARBITRATION COURT.

The motion with regard to the Arbitration Court,- which the Trades Conference discussed yesterday afternoon, was rightly described by one of tho delegates as an attack on the President of the Court. And in pursuing that attack some of the speakers went so far beyond the bounde of legitimate criticism that they may be said to have lost sight of them from first to hist. Tnere hare been of late numerous outbreaks of dissatisfaction with the Court* awards on the part of the worker*, but it was left to the representatives of labour to make tho most violent onslaught on the President of the Court. Tho only reason for this remarkable and unfortunate attitude is that com« recent awards have been lew* favourable to the workers concerned than they hoped. And lxxraufie of this, the Trades Conference not only condemns the awards as being against the""' weight of evidence, but goes &o far .as to impugn Mr Justice

Chapman's motives and principles. One delegate asserted roundly that he knew of instances in which the Court gare its judgment without considering the evidence at all; another that the judge "had gone back on precedent, justice, and equity right through"; * third that the. decisions of tho Court had often been "unsound and unfair." If these charges wore meant to be taken seriously it was absurd for the speakers to attempt to modify their only meaning by references to the Judge's ability and honesty. They were obviously intended to convey the imputation that the workers cannot get justice in the Arbitration Court. It is a new thing for disappointed claimants <o band together and vilify the judge because his decision was not wholly in. their favour, but it is a novelty with which, unfortunately for the credit of New Zealand in general and some of the workers' leaders in particular, one is becoming oniy too familiar. The attempt to argue that because Sir Robert Stout criticised a judgment of the Privy Council, a labour delegate is entitled to asperso the impartiality of the President of the Arbitration Court, is sheer impertinence. The Chief Justice did not attack tho judges of the Privy Council, but sinipjy pointed out, in studiously moderate language, where in coming to a certain decision they had failed to understand tho law and conditions of New Zealand. That is a very different matter from heaping personal abuse on a judge because his ! decisions do not give the claim/ante all they ask. The Conference fortunately forbore to make itself ridiculous by J passing the motion, but the ton© of the debate to which it gave rise reflects little credit upon those who took part in it, and upon those whose views they presumably represent.