THE ARBITRATION ACT.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13131, 2 June 1908, Page 8

THE ARBITRATION ACT.

A LABOUR LEADER'S ADVERSE CRITICISM.

(SI*ECIA_ TO •■THE PRESS."" WELLINGTON, June 1. In the course of an address last evening, Mr W. T. Young, secretary of the Seamen's Union and the Tramway Union, spoke strongly in condemnation of the Arbitration Act. He pointed out that when the Act was first introduced in 1894, its strong supporters were the workers, while the strong opposition came from the employers. Now tho position was reversed, for the workers were coming to the conclusion that arbitration in New Zealand had exhausted its uses, and if the workers wero to improvo their position, they must grasp some greater medium than, the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The measure had been so amended from timo U> time that it was not. now intended to encourage or WPP ]J» formation of Trade L'nioiis. to the amendments of 1900, the speaker .emarked:—"Hero commences a long chain of links tantamount to binding the Unions down to a system of slavery " It was difficult to say how a trade union could possibly tree itself from tho provisions of an award w nch could now remain _n operation en til it was suspended by another, ot-tho Union's registration was cancelled If a Side union cancelled >r«_*r.tmn under the Arbitration Act and the Trades Union Act, any court of coni-o-tent jurisdiction would, -in his opinKTb. empowered to declare the Union to be an illegal combination. The un dor-rate provision, which d »f . not -Jg; pear in tho original Act, had been abused by the Arbitration Court and STSip-oye-. in .the most bare-faced manner! Ho claimed that :it ™ ; most a sheer impossibility at tho prosent day for any representative of a Sn to get a fair and courteous hearing at the hands of the Court, The time was come when there wouldl have to bo an improvement, which could only come through the exercise of the workers' votes. They should send men to tho House, of their own ways of think-ing-men who would take what was the workers right, instead of having to wait on the doorstep for something the Liberals liked to give. The Blackball Mine ana Auckland Tramway strikes were of material importance, because they involved the question of dismissalof Unionists. Seven prominent Unionists and Socialists were dismissed from the Blackball Mine. Under th© Act n would be impossible to prove to the Court's satisfaction that those men were dismissed because they were Un- j ionists. If the evidence was so, the Court would place it on one side and find in favour of the employers.