The Dominion MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 1908. A CRISIS AND ITS LESSONS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 105, 27 January 1908, Page 6

The Dominion MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 1908. A CRISIS AND ITS LESSONS.

The serious trouble that has arisen in'the Westport coal district is the immediate resiilt of Parliament's interference last session with the authority of the Arbitration Court. The painful spectacle to /which the country is now being treated—the spectacle of the Premier and the Minister for Labour Ayr ing to Westland to. pacify a body of murmuring l workers, regardless ''of •their ' 'dignity/ 'or the dignity-i'of the laws which they have loudly and constantly proclaimed to be, equal to any industrial: situation— that/spectacle' is the price which we are paying for the blow which the Government, by its approval, allowed a private Act to strike at the heart of arbitration As we have made our readers familiar through recent articles with the way in which the Government allowed itself to drift'into its present dilemma, we need not now do more than briefly recall the facts of the position. Prior to last session the " bank-to-bank" principle laid , down in_ the coal-mines legislation was wisely made subject to existing Arbitration Court Awards. Last session, however, the Government assisted Mr. Colvin to pass a short Act removing this restriction upon the operation of the principle. It thus overrode by/Statute a vital provision of the award governing the conditions of work in the Denniston mine. Relping upon the authority of the new statutory repeal of Clause 16 of the award, the Denniston miners, under Union direction, issued a practical challenge t'o the authority of the Court, with the result that the Court refused to hold that its scale of hours and wages had been set aside. Something like a crisis followed, but it was temporarily got over, and prolonged negotiations between masters and men have now resulted in the firm determination of the Union to insist on the concessions which the workers. receive from the amending Act of last year.

We know as little as Parliament does respecting tlie merits of the tank-to-bank principle in the affected mines. It is not Parliament's business to know anything about that, since the Arbitration Court is a tribunal specially created to settle such questions and, by investigating all the conditions of the industry and giving a just award, to secure industrial peace. Very few people nowadays, excepting the extreme Labour agitator, dream of doing anything so improper as to challenge the I honesty and capacity of the Court. But Parliament showed itself ready to do it, and it did it through the friendly aid given by the Government to a private member who avowedly desired Parliament to force the Court into doingsomething which its considered judgment forbade it to do. No doubt both the Premier and Mr. Millar are in their hearts bitterly regretting that they allowed the authority of one of the most important of our legally-con-stituted tribunals to be set aside at the solicitation of a small body of malcontents. Their presence at the scene of the trouble is an affront to the dignity of the Arbitration Act, and a confession of their own weakness. We noted a few days ago the remarkable memorandum which the Arbitration Court, in its anxiety to safeguard justice from a new and dangerous menace, has attached to a recent decision, and we have only to repeat that it is scandalous that the Court should bo thus under the necessity of arming itself against the evil of Parliamentary in-. terference with awards. The present situation would never have arisen but for the vicious principle introduced last session. The miners may have been discontented, had the Colvm Blot not disturbed their minds, but the only issue in such a case would have beon whether or not the Arbitration Act was to be treated as a dead letter*'

. We suppose tliat som'e compromise, perhaps one of doubtful legality, will be arranged by the Premier and Mr. ' Millar, possibly at a cost, of sound principles. But the situation will not have ended with the disappearance of its .critical elements. The dissatisfaction of the miners with the award is. iiot so_ easy to condemn' as it : would be if their grumblings had not the warrant of a special-Statute. The miners, indeed, seem little to blame in .tie matter —as little to blame as 'the employers. What ,is most .important to insist upon at present—it is a point either hurried past or ignored by the chief Ministerial journals—is the double warning which the affair contains/for the Government on the one hand, and for all moderate, fair-minded people on the other. To the Government it should be a warning of the unexpected troubles that may lie concealed in any. departure from just principles. To moderate people the warning is of another atid- a more alarming character. All the patchings-up of the Arbitration Act having failed .to grapple with Labour's determination to get its own way, Parliament is to be ■ made an agent against the fair and natural working of the machinery of arbitration. Nobody will believe that, unless a decided stand' is made by the friends of industrial justice, : Parliament's interference • with ■ industrial 'awards:will'ead with the Colvin\Bjot. These things have a way of growing and expanding, just as the Arbitration Court and the Labour Department have so grown and expanded as to differ from what, they were meant to be' as widely as a forest;-of many sorts of trees differs jfrom a single shrub. Nor, having discovered that it can get Parliament to vary-an industrial award, is Labour likely to leave .unused its new and powerful weapon. Very rapidly the time is approaching,. when, unless Ministers redeem their past, all the forces, of justice and moderation in the community will find themselves ranged' against the Socialism-ridden Government thatj has betrayed the Arbitration Court.