AM IMPORTANT JUDGMENT.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 139, 9 December 1904, Page 5

AM IMPORTANT JUDGMENT.

ARBITRATION COURT'S POWERS. EFFECT OF THE DECISION. TROUBLOUS TIMES EXPECTED. i [press association.] SYDNEY, Bth December. The High Court of Australia delivered judgment to-day in an appeal against decisions of the Arbitration Court and the Full Court that the former possessed the power of making a "common rule." The High Court, in upholding the appeal, with costs, and granting prohibition against the- Arbitration Court, declared that the Arbitration Court had exceeded its power. An industrial agreement might be enforced between parties bound by it; but there was no basis for a "common rule." The Chief Justice (Sir Samuel Griffith) said the Arbitration Court in this case had asserted jurisdiction which the Legislature had not intended to give it, and had endtavoured by a short cut, without first providing the safeguard stipulated by the Act, to ijapose an obligation upon" a person not before it. 'Uie "common rule" decision affects several "common rules" already made by the Arbitration Court. Trades unionists and employers alike agree that the "common rule" decision of the High Court strikes at the vital principle of the Arbitration Act. Out of forty-five agreements already registered by the Court, the "common rule" applies to fifteen. Troublous times Are predicted for those concerned thereunder. It is probable some steps will be taken in the direction of having the "common rule" validated in these cases. The appeal case referred to in the above cablegram was the Master Retailers' Association v. Shop Assistants' Union and others. The facts are that on 3rd December last an industrial agreement was entered into by F. Lassetter and Co., Limited, the United Grocers, and the Shop Assistants' Union, which contained ceTtain provisions with regard to terms' of employment. On the same day a second agreement was entered into by the same parties, which provided that that agreement should no,t come into force or be in any way binding until the industrial agreement should be made a common rule. The first agreement was registered on 4th December, and the second one on 10th December. The two employees' unions then gave notice on 22nd January of their intention to apply to the Arbitration Court, under section 37 of the Arbitration Act, to make a common rule the agreementwhich, by their own agreement with F. Lasseter and Co., Limited, was pot to have any force and effect until it was made- a common rule. On 9th February the Master Retailers' Association took out a summons caning upon the parties to the first agreement to show cause why the notice should not be set aside. The question of jurisdiction was raised at once. The summons came on for determination before the Arbitration Court, when it was dismissed, with costs, on 24th March. A rule nisi was afterwards applied for and granted by Mr. Justice Walker prohibiting the Arbitration Court from proceeding with the~application to make the agreement a common rule. The Full Court, the Bench being tho Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Owen, and Mr. Justice Pring, discharged the rule on 28th June, and it was against this judgment that the appeal was made. The grounds of appeal were that the Full Court was in error in holding that the Arbitration Court had jurisdiction to make the agreement of 3rd December, and filed on 4th December in the Arbitration Court a common rule, seeing that by a further agreement dated 3rd December and filed on 10th December the first agreement was not to come into force or be in any way binding on any of the parties thereto, unless and until the agreement should be made the common rule for the trades or businesses mentioned in the first agreement; (2) in holding that the first agreement was a valid and subsisting indnstrial agreement; (3) in holding that the Arbitration Court bad jurisdiction to order that an indenture agreement or any term thereof should be a common rule.