The Dominion WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1907. INDUSTRIAL ARBITRATION

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 42, 13 November 1907, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1907. INDUSTRIAL ARBITRATION

In some quarters it appears to be taken for granted that the Government will not seek to place the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act Amendment'Bill on the Statute Book this session, and, although we consider the Bill an improvement of the existing law, we hope that this anticipation is well-founded. It is too late now to ask Parliament to deal with a measure presenting so many contentious features as appear in this generally useful Bill, and its passage would amount to a damning criticism of the Government's legislative methods. With respect to the Bill itself, there should be nothing but approval for the substitution of the Industrial Councils for the Conciliation Boards. Although the Councils will practically exercise the same functions,as the Boards, they will contain, in their character and their expert constitution, possibilities of conciliation that long ago ceased to exist in the wrangling bodies of permanent partisans that have generally failed so dismally 'in the past. The other important amendment in the existing machinery for the making of awards and their subsequent enforcement raises some very debatable issues, but, as far as the main principles are concerned, the amendment is in. the right direction. _, When Mr. Justice Williams issued his dissent from Mr. Justice Cooper's ruling that a fine for a breach of award was enforceable by imprisonment, he contended that the Magisterial certificate of fine filed in any Court having civik jurisdiction was, " according to its tenor, enforceable in all respects as a final judgment of such court in its civil jurisdiction." The Bill borrows the learned Judge's phraseology in the clause relating to the enforcement of fines,' and accordingly proposes _ a statutory, enactment of the judicial ruling that a fine can only be a civil debt. Curiously enough, it is being objected by some critics that the power of imprisonment is actually left untouched by the new Bill. ; If a debtor cannot pay under the Civil Law he escapes imprisonment, the onus of proof that he can meet his liability resting on the creditor. This removes the possibility of undue hardship under the Bill. Little objection can be raised to the provision that an unpaid fine can be liquidated by_ deduction from wages. Of course this provision is a sacrilegious attack.upon the divine right to strike', but Labour cannot have that divine right and the divine right to arbitrate at the same time. Such hardship as a striker might suffer from the 25 per cent, deduction fixed in the original Bill is removed by the Labour Bills Committee's modification of the deduction by making 25 per cent, the maximum instead of 'the absolute percentage. No part of the Bill is beset with such difficulties, or has provoked such various antagonism, as Clause 47, which, by, empowering unions to levy contributions from nonunionists; affirms the principle of compulsory unionism. As friends of trades unionism, which has the virtue of affording means for coherence, and regularity in the working of the industrial machine,' we would deplore the discouragement of association amongst workers. There \ nevertheless appears to us to be sound reason for objeotion to the coercion of any independent worker whose individual merit' can gain for him all that membership of a union can bring him. Unionists object to the provision because of the coercion of the unions: they do not relish any fracture of the " close corporation" of unionism. The proposition, with all its conflict of motives, requires the most careful deliberation by the Legislature, and is peculiarly one not to be hurriedly despatched by sleepy and impatient legislators, anxious to catch a steamer or a train.

Some of the amendments made by the Labour Bills Committee are no less contentious than the original Bill. The express validation of " things informally done" by the machinery of the Bill, and of the original Act, is a welcome amendment, and valuable also is the correction of the clause which carelessly put an end to trades union, registration. This cannot be said, however, of the proposal that the President of a Council shall continue to exist as a source of friction as the interpreter of Council awards. Mischievous minority is handicapped by requiring at least twenty-five members in a new union, but there does not appear to be an equal justice in that new sub-clause of Clause 53, which considerably softens for the worker, and not for the employer, the requirement that the secretary of a union or association shall be, or shall have been, employed in the industry affected. If a small union of workers may employ a professional secretary, so, too, should a small union of employers. One other clause requires notice. This is the new clause 45a, which, while it provides that an employer may be ordered to

pay the full amount of tlio difference between the wage lie lias been paying and the wage he should have paid, provides also that the Crown may take all hut the three months' difference that goes to the worker. We do not expect that the Government will have so little regard for legislative propriety as to force the Bill through this session, but should the attempt be made we hope that it will be met by a determined counter-attempt to remove these anomalies in an otherwise useful proposal.