ARBITRATION COURT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 115, 17 May 1909, Page 8

ARBITRATION COURT.

A MEMORANDUM. [BZ TELEGRAPH — PBESS ASSOCIATION.] GISBORNE, This Day. The Arbitration Court, in the painters' dispute, made an award in substance trtie same as the previous one. In an attached memorandum, the court says that the evidence went to show that the coat of a number of the necessaries of life was actually less than in 1905. From w.hat was said by a representative of the union at the hearing, he appeared to tliink that because the term fixed by the laet award had expired, >t was the duty of the union to apply for a, new award. "It is quite a mistake, continued the memorandum, "to suppose that it is a function of the Arbitration Court to go on endlessly revising the conditions of a particular industry. Where an industry has been before the court two or three times, and its conditions investigated, the last awards should be treated as finally settling these conditions, and any alteration can only be made on clear, definite proof that "there has been a change in the circumtiauces since the award was made. Much expense and disappointment will be avoided if executives of unions will ponder what we have said,* and if, before originating a dispute, they will ascertain that there is some definite and reasonable ground for asking for an alteration, and will recognise that without some such ground it is useless to ask for any alteration. It is idle to ask, as many umone do, for an increase in wages fixed by an existing award, and to have nothing better to offer in support of the application than the evidence of a number ot workers who are prepared to say that in their opinion the wages asked for are reasonable. To roly on evidence of that kind is to oorrfesb's that the union :.has been unable to find anything in t heshape of fact or argument to support its case." The award in the bakers' dispute' reduces the hours to 48 per week. The wages will be same as those fixed by the Mart award.

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