Employers' Federation and Arbitration.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19154, 10 November 1927, Page 10

Employers' Federation and Arbitration.

It is necessary to accept the statement of the President of the New Zealand Employers' Federation (Contained in a Press Association telegram from Wellington in yesterday's Press) that the recent meeting between the Federation and the Alliance of Labour did not imply "collusion between employers and Labour to defeat the " Arbitration Amendment Bill." There is indeed no difficulty in accepting the President's explanation, or in believing ■that the conference was quite innocent and harmless so far as any member of the Federation could see. But we cannot regret that the member for Oroua drew attention to it, and let farmers know that the Federation, even if it has not " linked up with Labour to defeat their "aims, objects, and aspirations," is not going.to assist them to obtain relief from the direct and indirect pressure of the Arbitration Court. We do not know why the Federation is so anxious to maintain the Court as it is, and we should not like to suggest that the explanation is that given by Mr Eliott. But it is plain that in taking such a strong stand against any material amendment of the Arbitration Act the Federation invited the approach from Labour which has already been made, and the suspicions among farmers which have now definitely been aroused. For although the fuller reports which appeared in the Wellington papers showed that the Federation was willing to have the present system wholly or partially ended (by the exclusion of certain industries) if " both sides " in industry are willing to make the "experiment," they show also that it expressed the opinion that "no good "purpose would be served by the "exclusion of the fanning industries "from the Act, and the consequent " antagonism of the workers therein, " since the operation of the Act is not "in any way responsible for the "present financial situation of the "farmers." The Federation bases this extraordinary opinion on the fact that the situation of our farmers is "no " worse than that existing in the coun- " tries in which there is no industrial u arbitration—f or example, the United

" States of America "; -which is like saying that if a horse shivers under a rug in Canterbury, it is not the weight of the rug -which is at fault, because horses also shiver under far heavier rags in Canada and Siberia. No comparison of any kind can be made between New Zealand and the United States unless the only difference between the two sets of conditions were, as everybody knows it is not, the presence in New Zealand of an Arbitration Court. And everybody also knows that if the farmer has to sell his goods in unsheltered markets it makes a difference to him whether he is also producing them in an unsheltered field or in a field in which every hand that he employs and every article that he buys has been forced up in price by a wholly external agent. To argue that it could be otherwise is simply to make the farmer ask whose friend the Federation is; and also, though this is more absurd than serious, to bring along the Alliance of Labour, a direct-actionist organisation, with an. offer of assistance in defending compulsory arbitration.