LABOUR PROBLEMS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 122, 23 May 1908, Page 9

LABOUR PROBLEMS.

I » > — ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. SPEECH BY THE ATTORNEY-GEN-ERAL. THE ACT, REVIEWED. [Bi Tklbgbaph. — Special to Thb Post.] V < WANGANUI, 22nd May. The Attorney-General (Hon. Dr. Findlay) delivered an address this evening, before a large audience, on the subject of labour and arbitration. The Mayor (Mr. C. E. Mackay) occupied the chair. fn the course of a long and interesting address the Minister said that the right to a living was now becoming more articulate and clear. Mankind was increasingly recognising that the State should be more to its peopie than a cold-blooded policeman armed with prohibitions and penalties — that it should be rather an active moral body to promote general welfare, a beneficial parent that would in some way protect the weak from the reign of force found under unrestricted competition. The trend of the civilised world therefore was that there should be a minimum wage at below which no worker could lawfully be employed. The most effective agency yet adopted to give voice to public opinion and prevent sweating and secure a living wage' for the workers was the New Zealand Compulsory Arbitration Act of 1894. They were' apt to overlook that. They must remember that in England, in America, and in many other Englishspeaking lands, there was still no protection given by law against sweating. THE ARBITRATION ACT. ' He then passed' to a consideration of the New Zealand Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. • "We hear so much nowadays," said Dr. Findlay, "about the Act having failed to prevent strikes that one is apt to think that it intended originally and 6olely to prevent strikes. For eleven years after the Act passed it was no offence in .this, co.untry either to. strike or to lock-out or to take part in either. The Act was passed An 1894. and it wa3 not until 1905 that strikes and lockouts were declared illegal by law. The current 'popular feeling from which our Arbitration Act and similar Acte in Australia really sprung - has ' of late years been gradually lost sight of, and the assumption made that this legislation was devised and passed only for the purpose of preventing strikes by making them illegal. Let me shqw you • that this legislation owes its .existence not only to the action of that body of workers who > can. afford to strike — who have the means and organisation requisite for such a purpose— but also to the sufferings of those weaker workers— women and 'children — who have riot this means of protection.' The driving force that Brought these Acts jnto law was only partly a _desire to settle industrial war. It. was earlier a public opinion ( shocked by. "the, revelations of sweating, not only in ' New Zealand, but in Australia." ' The main> scheme of the Act, continued the Minister,' after .briefly tracfng it© history,' was to fix a minimum wage, not £o coerce the worker in any way to accept it. After an award was made they * might strike against the award wage with impunity. The strike, therefore, was ©till open to them, but the lo6k-out was in effect though not expressly taken from the employer. One of the fundamental purposes of the Act was to fix a minimum — an anti-sweating — wage. This the workers were not in any way .bound to accept. In other words, the Act aimed as one of its main purposes at fixing a wage, below whicH in' the interests/ of justice and decency no worker should bo asked or permitted ' to "work. WORKING OF THE ACT. 1 " How, asked the Minister, had the Act affepted this best and most humane >york in New Zealand? ■ It has absolutely stamped out sweating. It has not only raised the wages of the. least protected workers, but it has shortened their hours and improved their conditions. If you want' an expanded picture of the contrast between the state of things in this country before the Act came into force and now, read the evidence taken by the Sweating Commission in 1890, not only in Dunedin, but right through New Zealand. It is sorrowful reading : In 1890 tailoresses got 15s per week. Now they get 255. In 1890 hosiery workers got 9s per week. Now ' they get 20s. Shirt-makers got 18s 6d per week. Now they get 30s. I have contrasted the highest rates paid. In dressmaking and millinery trades, similar contrasts may be seen. But that was not all. The hours 6f employees are now " regulated "Young women milliners were made on Saturdays to serve as shop assistants until nearly midnight. Hairdressers worked from 8 a.m. to 9.30 p.m., and on Saturdays jtill midnight. Women assistants in fancy shops worked from 9 a.m. tn 6 p.m. and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on alternate nights. Female drapers' assistants throughout the long hours ot duty were not allowed to sit down — now sitting accommodation is legally required. In confectioners' shops women worked from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day but Saturday, and then until 11.30 at night. Medical evidence showed that owing to tho conditions under which women worked in factories in those days their health ! was impaired, and ill-health thus induced added more suffering to the long hours and hard conditions of work. Should not the whole ranks of labour prize such a measure?" Benefits long secured were apt to be forgotten, and he asked the workers of New Zealand to renew their old recognition of this Act as a beneficient exterminator of the sweater and all his methods. ; WITHOUT STRIKES. He denied that the settlement of industrial disputes was the sole purpose of the Act, but that was on» of the functions which it was expected "to discharge with some measure of success. It was not too much to say that for twelve or thirteen years under tho Act New Zealand was, in fact, a country without strikes. They had almost forgotten what that meant. WHAT STRIKES ARE. "But," said the Minister with emphasis, "we get some initiations from other lands." And he quoted the foliowing figures: — "Between 1891 and 1900 — that is in 10 years in the United Kingdom, there wero 7931 strikes, affecting 2,900,145 workers. In the United States in 20 years there were 22,793 strikes, involving 117,509 establishments, and in these the mens' losses ar» estimated at 55 millions sterling, and the masters at 24£ millions sterling, equal to a total oi-79£ millions sterling. These figures speak in pounds, shillings, and pence, but that is the least of the trouble. They tell ns nothing of the suffering, want, misery, disease, often blood and death, which these great conflicts involve. No men on either side, worker or employer, who has ever been through and seen tha effects of a great strike will lightly incur another one." THE EUTURE. He claimed that with all it* defect*, if a vote was taken to-morrow, of the

workers of New Zealand for the retention of the Act or its repeal, the result would show an enormous majority in favour of the Act. That being made clear, he was prepared to admit that in certain quarters the workers' enthusiasm for the Act had declined. Why? There were several reasons. But he first wanted to assert this view, that the Act had never had the cordial co-operation of employers and employees. "At first strenuously resisted «nd disliked by employers, it has had throughout its career the misfortune to be used by one side or other, not in a spirit of conciliation as a real arbitrator in a dispute, but as a means rather of industrial friction. This is tho main reason why it has to some ex-, tent disappointed the expectations of its framer. Perhaps the expectation of bucli co-operation was more than human nature justified, but had tho Act had this co-operation, I am satisfied it would have realised all its aims." "WIPE IT OUT," AND THEN ?

"Wipe oat the Act," he remarked, "and every help and protection to labour it affords, and get back to the misery of such a struggle as the maritime strike, and then ask Labour whether or not it> has lost a friend !"

Thero was another class of discontents which had done, their best to discredit the Act — the militant or revolutionary Socialists or collectivists. They desired nothing which would make the systemi more, satisfactory; they were content with nothing but the tearing out of the tree by the roots. The second reason resting with the worker was that the Act had not been used in the spirit which its framer intended. That had been largely responsible for tho dead level of wages and other conditions attributed to the operation of the Act. Probably both workers and employer wore equally responsible for that.

DISPUTES

Disputes had for years past, he went ont o say, in many cases been filed without any real dispute having arisen — without any real attempt to negotiate With the other party or come .to any agreement. Demands were frequently made by unions which they candidly did not expect employers to accede to. Thus the court, by the method^* employed by many of those it was intended to serve, had been changed from its character as an arbitrator settling a genuine industrial dispute, and converted into something rather like a State regulator of industry — or, at least, resembling a State regulator of wages. This had naturally led to a hundredfold more applications to the court than its originators ever expected, and had provoked the, - comment that the Act had encouraged rather than reduced) industrial unrest. The practice which had' largely converted the court into a State regulator of industry or wages had in doing this produced results 'of which the workers now complained — among these results a marked tendency to a dead level of wages for all employees, whatever their (skill and energy, in the same trade.

COST OF LIVING.

The charge that the increased cost of living of recent years was due to the Act was only partially true. The chief increase had taken place 'in meat, bread, butter, potatoes, eggs, and milk. But the Arbitration Act had done practically nothing to increase those prices. Tho increase in house rent was not duo to the Act. It was easy to declare, without giving reasons, that the Act destroyed tho value of tho increases of wages it secured by causing a corresponding increase of prices, but confident critics would find that while the court had increased wages all round 18 per cent in twelve years, that had been a real increase, and had not in any material way destroyed itself by increasing the cost of the workers' living.

ARBITRATION v. FORCE,

"I do not," said the Minister, propose to say more regarding the advantages of compulsory arbitration over tho old appeal to force involved in a strike. Even where a great strike goes on it almost always terminates in submission from exhaustion or in submission to some form of arbitration. But there is another and even greater reason for compulsory arbitration, the interests of the people as a whole. From this point of view it does not matter whether employers or workers are content with the Act or desire to get back to the old method of lock-out and strike. There is a higher interest' than the' interest of either side — there, is the paramount interest of the pcoplo as a whole, and if, in their interest, compulsory arbitration is desirable, it will be retained.

PENALTIES FOE STRIKING.

The last and one of the most important questions still remaining was that of penalties for striking. He did not believe in imprisonment for strikers, holding that it did not prevent men striking in violation of the law. To put in gaol a large number ot men because they left work in concert, for some grievance real, or imaginary, would rhrn sympathy for them rather than discredit. "But," he added, "while the Act remains upon the statute book, the men should be under tho obligation to pay the fines imposed upon them by the court. I should imprison neither employers nor employees for failure to pay fines for lock-out or strike ; but short of imprisonment, I should exact from both by every reasonable civil process that exists, or can be devised, the full payment of the fine ordered by the court. This country will nob permit — no country will permit — any class, however large, to enjoy all the advantages of legislation ; to enforce against another class all the penalties of mal-logislation, and them themselves to violate that very legislation — and not only violate it, but do so with an ostentatious derision and contempt. This is not even British fair play. It is a deliberate breach of the law — and law and order must bs enforced or our social system must dissolve. Properly understood, the provision for the payment of fines for striking in the Amending Bill of last year is adequate and effective. Pass that provision, and I am satisfied that without any limelight fuss or heromaking, future fines for striking will be paid. If workmen defy our law by strike, if they reject an important tribunal standing ready to intervene and secure to them the fullest measure of justice, they will arouse a new public opinion and sentiment, which will enormously impair the protective efficacy of trades unions. The struggles of labour in the past in England and elsewhere — the fights for the bare decency of life — have timo and again found the great heard of the people with the strikers. In the absence ot any legal redress or tribunal to help them, the strike was their only weapon of true defence — and was felt to bo in many cases proper and legitimate ; and this it was — this alone — that turned public sentiment against the blarkleg — against the man who was coming in to defeat those who were really fighting for him. The blackleg in such a case was a skunk ; and these considerations have had such powerful influence, such an enormous influence, with the public — and in turn with* unorganised free labour — that of late years the. employers have in most cases been unablo while a strike lasted to get free labour — blackleg labour — to (ill the places of ths strikers. This, I repeat, has been the greatest influence which has helped trade union' conflicts, and if it goes — | if the blackleg ceases in public estimate to be in a sense a traitor to his class, but becomes a genuine servant to the public — fi'ao labour will become readily available to fill strikers' ulacW