A BLOW AT ARBITRATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 76, 23 December 1907, Page 5

A BLOW AT ARBITRATION.

; Sir.—Your excellent : article under the above heading/hits . off the position . most accurately, .arid the enquiry is most pcrtifiont, • "where will.' Parliament's : encroachments cease?" , On. Monday,:. November,.lß,-the hearing of the dispute' Cooks .and Waiters' .Union :v. Hotelkeepers-and, others was finished in. the Arbitration Court. . In opening the case for the. employers Mr. Pryor stated that the primary factors in the dispute were "holidays" and "hours of work," and submitted a proposal of a periodical extended holiday m lieu of a weekly half-day, which was favoured.'by many:-of the. witnesses. 'An abnormal amount of'evidence was heard to enable the, Court.to.decide, and the caso was 6f.-con.rse sub.judico. On the following Saturday between the hours of. 1 a.m.' and 3 a.m. on • practically the last sitting day of the House, and'whon half the members had left for.their homes, the' Minister, for Lab6ur suddenly introduced mi amendment- into the .Shops and Offices Bill, granting a weekly half-holiday to air hotel assistants,' which was adopted, in , a sickly, exhausted House, arid the Bill was immediately-read a third time; and -passed... That, the action was most tricky Js conclusively proved from the. fact that the Bill, was .before the House for weeks,' and the special .subject of the halfholiday had-been brought under the notice of the Minister by 'repeated' deputation's. - I-contend it was an absolute insult, to the Arbitration Court. which ,no one under the. ; rank of a Cabinet Minister would have dared to'offer. It is none the less sublimely ridiculous, that. Parliament should solve the primary point of an industrial,-dispute in live minutes with'out. hearing the evidence, and with half the members asleep, which a special legal tribunal took two days to hear argument: upofi, and would have occupied some weeks ,to ; adjudicate. Another obelisk' should be. erected iu Parliament, grounds representing the Arbitration' Court as'a. lion couchant with the .foot of- the ..Minister for Labour on. its- neck.— 1 am, etc.,'. • EMPLOYER.. Wellington,' December 21. ■