The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1908. STRIKES AND THE LAW.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 294, 5 September 1908, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1908. STRIKES AND THE LAW.

The various judgments of the Arbitra tion Court in tho cases arising out o: the recent strike of bakers are of th< highest importance. We cannot, withir the compass of a single article, follow al tho trains of thought which they open up and we need do no more now than discus: the Court's findings in their relation tc the immediate problem before Parliament in the shape of the Bill to amend th( Arbitration Act. Tho most obvioui feature of the Court's decisions is theii revelation of the futility of the existing provisions against strikes. Let, us saj at once that it is not unlikely that, ir any one of the three chief cases—thosi against Kelpe, Domenech, and Collins— the Supreme Court might have placec upon the law an interpretation the oppo site of that supplied by the Arbitratior Court. But the Arbitration Court'i judgments are final, and we must accepl them as the final reading of the Act In the case against Kelpe, the defendanl had been " coerced" by pickets intc ceasing work. The Court held that s single worker might ■ bo guilty of the offence of striking if ho actcd " in concert with other workers with the view of enforcing some demand made by the workers upon their employers," but il held that as Kelpe had been,coerced intc striking, against his will, ho " was not " really acting in concert" with'.'" the strikers. It is obvious that this'judgment lends itself to use as an almost complete charter of liberty to strike. Id any future strike, any one of tho strikers may plead that ho ceased work against his will and under coercion, and it may not be an easy thing to prove the contrary. Here is a quite unsuspected weakness of tho existing Act. Another waß revealed in tho' case against Domeneoh, who escaped punishment because, although a leading spirit in the strike, he was neither a " worker " noi an "employer." In this caso the Court spoke very strongly of the necessity for amending the law by making it penal for any person to incito or cncourago any worker to go or continue on strike. The necesaary provision to this end is contained in'the amending Bill now before Parliament. Most interest attaches, of course, to the case against the secretary of the Union. This case turned entirely upon the meaning of the word " strike " when used as a noun in the statute, and the Court held that the famous interpretation of the word given by tho AttorneyGeneral is the correct one: that a " strike " is " the original refusal to act, and nothing more." We cannot say that the Court gave very convincing reasons for its opinion. Beginning with the reasonable premise that wie correct meaning of " strike " as used in tho Act should be deduced from the sense or non-senso of the results following upon tho two conflicting interpretations, the, Court immediately begged the whole question by treating as an independent or axiomatic starting point the fact that " to striko is an offence, but to continue on striko is not an offence." Having laid that down, the Court need not have troubled itself further. But the Court proceeded as follows:—"To construe tho word 1 strike ' in its popular sense would meanj therefore, that while a worker who continues on striko is not punishable for doing so, any person who aids him to do so is guilty of an offence. In other words, the Court would have to hold that the Legislature has intended that a person who encourages another to do a particular act is to bo punished for that encouragement, although that act, frem tho point of view of tho law, is perfectly innocent, and the person who has dono tho act is not liable to any punishment. The doctrine that a porson may bo guilty of an offence by aiding and abetting in tho performance of an act which is itself, not an offence is certainly a novelty in jurisprudence, and we cannot believe that the Legislature ever intended to bring about such a startling and fantastic result by the language which it has used." The Court went on to say that to hold that the word " strike " is used to donote the momentary act would not " lead to any such absurdity as that which follows from the other construction." But let the independent or axiomatic startingpoint be the dictum, " to strike is an offcnco and to continue to strike is an offence." The result would bo as frco from ultimate " absurdity" as tho Court's interpretation of tho word. But tho point need not be discussed any further. Tho Attorney-General may claim that tho Court's finding is a justification for his advico to the Government in the Blackball trouble. But it is nothing of the kind. It certainly justifies tho Attorney-General's opinion, and to that extent ho has distinctly scored against his critics, but nothing can justify the Government's suspension of the law on the strength of that opinion and its refusal to have tho matter 1 tested by the only competent tribunal. It is not tho Government's business to suffocatc tho law because it is an Rau, Its iqlb duty is to Lot tho law move,. Had conegt it by. legia- J

lation when its asininity is properly established. And this brings us to the conclusion that must forcc itself on every reasonable mind, namely, the impossibility of devising for the suppression of strikes a law that will bo at onco effective, sound, and humanly just. The Government may.procecd from one patching-up to another, everywhere violating either a legitimate human right or manufacturing a new injustice. But it can never reach finality. The Court's latest judgments do not merely disclose an almost incredible looseness in the drafting of the law. Do tlicy not suggest the fundamental hopelessness of loading fetters on industry and industrial contracts, and leaving them free at one and the same time 1 Do they not suggest that the permanent coercion of labour, without which compulsory arbitration on the New Zealand model is meaningless, should be given up and frankly recognised for what it is, namely, an acadcmic theory at variance with the facts of life?