LETTERS TO EDITOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 37, 12 August 1905, Page 15

LETTERS TO EDITOR.

m ,■ MORE ARBITBATION-LESS CONCILIATION. .. « t TO THE EDITOE. Sir, — Somo wcefcs previous to the assembling of Parliament a deputation from, the Trades and Labour Council waited on the Premier to complain about the time it took to get the business through the. Arbitration Court, and there is no gainsaying their complaint was well founded. The Premier admitted this, and after discussion, promised' ho would ask Parliament to set up another Court— we should have one for each Island. Had the wish to.act as a statesman .should have been uppermost in the Premier's mind,' he would have taken some time to consider if it were wise to ask Parliament to do such a thing. At present we have finality about trade disputes once they have' got through the Court, and the public mind accepts it, believing that the finding of the Court has been arrived at in good faith and equity. If another Court is set up— one for each Island — will the results be accepted in the same way? Will the proceedings of the two and their findings be worked out and arrived at ..quite similarly? If not there will be conflicting. opinions and decisions, which will disturb the public mind, and possibly end in complications. Therefore the setting up of two Courts may do harm. N Ifc seems to me that two Courts are not required, if the legislation we have on the Statute Book^ were intelligently and honestly made use of. Since we have allowed either party to pass by the Conciliation Boards and go to the Court the trouble of congested business has set in. But worse than that, we have Almost ignored the most valuable factor in settling disputes between capital and labour, viz., conciliation, and we are encouraging one .party to do their best to compel the other party to their terms, with the result that when an award is given the losing side set their wits to work to find a. means of successfully evading it, so that it has come to this: The Court spends more time in hearing breaches of its own awards than in hearing disputes between employers and employed. The working of Conciliation Boards requires amendment. The members to act with the Chairman should be chosen from the trade in which the dispute arises ; they would know what they were talking about, and save time now wasted. There has been talk about making the Stipendiary Magistrate the Chairman, which would bo a mistake. What is wanted is a good business man — broad-minded and of long experience — having the respect of the community, chosen in the same way as now. The only legal knowledge required is how to read the Act under which he is working intelligently. The recommendations of the Boards', if not accepted "by; both sides, should be made binding until reviewed by the' Court. The present method of the Court is -to- ignore the prpceedings of the Boards and commence each case de novo, so that. the 6worn evidence of perhaps fifty witnesses is so much waste of. time, and by the time the Court is ready to hear the case evidence of the same value may not be procurable. Another reason for the recommendation of a Board to be given effect to is that a whole year may pass between the finding of the Board and the sitting of the Court in the same locality, and during that time the conditions in the trade affected are in a state of tension. The importance of this question is my excuse for trespassing on your valuable space. — I am, etc., CHAIRMAN. sth August 1905.