PRECEPT AND PRACTICE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 123, 25 May 1908, Page 6

PRECEPT AND PRACTICE.

The Attorney-General's Wanganui address upon the subject of labour and arbitration is a quarry of statements and ideas from which we are able at present to take only here and there a stone as foundation for comment. In view of the policy of the Government in regard to the administration of the Arbitration Acts, there is, however, one passage of the address which, coming as it does from ai member of the Cabinet, we findi particularly admirable and! suggestive. The Attorney-General, taking the attitude of the Scottish gentleman who declared : "Ccme one ! come all I this rock shall fly From, its stern base as soon, as I :" is reported to have uttered the' brave defiance following : "Tais country will not permit — no country will permit— any class, however Urge, to enjoy all the advantages of legislation ; to enforce against another class all the penalties of mallegislation; and then themselves to violate that very legislation — and not only violate it, but do bo with an ostentatious derision and contempt." But that is precisely what this country, by the policy of that very Government of which the Attorney-General ia a member, has permitted', and does permit, and seems likely ta keep on, permitting. The Blackball strikers enjoyed all the advantages of Arbitration legislation j they j violated that legislation; and the Government, by the mouth of the Labour Department, merely begged them not to keep on doing it, but to return to work and wages on what would be as nearly their own iterms as Government influence with the employers could secure. Instead of applying tho law to onforce a speedy and substantial penalty for the derisory violation of the law, tha Government took a course which invited] a trumpery penalty to be paid only after long delay. When the Government has the power to apply for the decisive punishment of a gross violation of the law, and does not exercise the power; but instead adopts a plan of action which it knows can only result in a pretence of punishment : what does the Government do but practically permit the violation, andl encourage further violation? Further : some dozen or more labour unions calmly contributed funds in aid of the Blackball strike, although the law expressly makes the aiding or abetting of a strike an offence • and again the Government permitted the violation of tho law. True, it was explained that the Act which) purported to puniah this very offence did not really refer to this offence — ov the Attorney-Genera l opined not; but the Government carefully refrained from putting the matter to the test of the opinion of the Arbitration Court, which alone is qualified) to interpret the Act. Thus the law, after having been apparently violated by the unions, was emotherecf by the Government. In the same issue of The Post which reports the splendid words of the AttorDoy'donoralf the Minister for Labour is

from Mr. Alfred Kidd, M.P., as expressing himself in language no less courageous. He denied that there was any delay in the Government action in regard to tho Blackball strike. Possibly there was not, having in view the roundabout course adopted. But why should the Minister go from Wellington to Christchnrch by way of Auckland ? Such a journey is geographically feasible; just as the law permits the Minister to prosecute a union first, and when the union funds are found to be missing — as at Blackball — to prosecute members of the union afterward. But geography also permits the Minister to go from Wellington to Christchurcn directly, and the law also permits him to save delay with an impecunious union by prosecuting tho members in tho first instance. Since the Minister, from cwo modes of action, chooses deliberately that mode which is obviously likely to breed delay, how is ifc possible to acquit his administxratign of the charge of delaying? We are glad to have the Minister's assurance that all the fines imposed by the Arbitration Court aro "being collected." We have understood as much, however, for a long time past. The AttorneyGeneral's precepts, and the ratification given them by the Minister for Labour, have an undoubted charm. We are still waiting for the practice.