FARM LABOURERS AND ARBITRATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 282, 22 August 1908, Page 4

FARM LABOURERS AND ARBITRATION.

The Arbitration 6ourt has taken a bold and it would seem from the evidence to' hand a proper course in the decision it has arrived at in regard to the Canterbury Farm Labourers' Industrial Dispute. For months past this dispute has been under consideration, the volumo of evidence called during the proceedings establishing a record in the history of the Arbitration Act in New Zealand. Now after .the months of labour entailed in the preparation and hearing of both sides of the case the majority of the Court finds that except on some minor points it is unable to frame an award which will deal satisfactorily with the situation disclosed. This decision, while it must necessarily prove a severe disappointment to the Farm Labourers' Union, the members of which would probably prefer any award rather than none at all, must at the same time be regarded with satisfaction by the community at large as establishing a principle of very great importance. The refusal of the Court to bind tho parties to the dispute to any fixed award covering hours of work and rates of pay was based on grounds to which every reasonable person will subscribe. " Before such extensive interference is justified," tho finding of the Cpurt ran, " it musfi be clear that substantial grievances exist, which can be redressed effectually by the Court, and that' the benefits to bo obtained by its interference will more than compensate for any mischief that may result from such interference. The Union failed to prove the existence of any substantial grievances or abuses that would justify the interference of the Court with the whole farming industry of Canterbury." No one can dispute the soundness of these conclusions, which were supplemented with the announcement that the Court found it impossible to fix any definito hours for daily work for general farm hands without materially altering the system under which farming is carried on at the present time. In other words, tho Court came to the conclusion that any award which it could framo would be likely to do more harm than good, and so it refrained from making any award at all. Mr M'Cullough, the workers' representative on the Court, dissented from this view, and elsewhere we publish in full the reasons for his dissent. His " reasons " really are nothing moro than bald expressions of opinion, but are interesting as affording evidence that Me. M'Cullough docs not yet appear to recognise that his position on the Court should not be that of a partisan. The finding of the Court will no doubt provoke a great deal of comment both in and out of Parliament, but the disinterested onlooker will in the majority of cases come to the conclusion that the Court exercised a proper discretion, and that its refusal to disturb the whole working of the farming industry of the Dominion on a comparatively slight pretext did credit to its common sense as well as to its sense of justicc.