LABOUR'S UNREST.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14275, 10 February 1912, Page 8

LABOUR'S UNREST.

Wo should bo the last to throw cold water on any adequate proposal for imnroving the relations between employers and employees. The present unrest is distinctly detrimental to the progress and prosperity of tho Dominion, and if it continues, with occasional sporadic strikes, any one of which may prove to bo the spark that lights the fire of a general strike, the consequences must be most serious. But we cannot think that the solution of the industrial problem that is now-en-caging so much attention is to be found in the appointment of a Royal Commission, as suggested by the Chairman of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, and approved by that body. Mr Myers proposes a commission composed of representative commercial men and

leaders of Labour, who shall take cvi-

donee throughout the I>ominion, and whose decisions, it would be reasonable to expect, ''would be based on jus- " tice and commonsense." Tho Chamber decided" to ask the Government to set up a Royal Commission as suggested. Frankly, we believe such a commission would be utterly useless for the purpose mentioned. It would no doubt secure a quantity of information as to the cause of the present unrest, and concerning tho existing relations between Capital and Labour —it would be a poor Commis- ' sion that could not do that much. A great deal of the information would be of no value, some would bo interesting, a little of it might be useful, but the total results would not justify tho labour and expense involved, and would certainly leave us as far off a solution of the problem and a settlement of the trouble as we are now. The Commission might conceivably receive some useful suggestions regarding the modification of the Conciliation and Arbitration system. Tho present system has completely broken down, and its reconstruction is urgently demanded, indeed it would bo better to repeal the Act than to allow it to remain on the Statute Book, to be flouted, whenever a section of the workers are dissatisfied with their conditions. A law designed to regulate tho relations of two parties, but which one party disregards at its pleasure, is worso than no law at all. But until the Canadian system has been tried

here, there is no necessity for any Commission to try and find a better one, and there tvould be still less necessity to appoint any Commission jt that system, after being tried, were to prove as futile as tho ono now so frequently set at naught. The present discontent, which is almost world wide, is not to be removed by any such rosewater remedy as a Royal Commission.