STATE TRIBUNALS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 83, 9 April 1910, Page 5

STATE TRIBUNALS.

LECTURE COURSE IN LONDON. BY MR. REEVES. [from our own correspondent.] LONDON, 25ih Februaiy. bluilent- in New Zealand would piobably be much surpiifcd to learn how highly the science of economics has been organised as a biani.ii of education during the last few years. Tlie outcome of tome yeaia of pioneering work i» now evident in a complete faculty of economics under the London Unixemty, and under the excellent i-yetem of lectures which is provided it is possible for practically anybody who is interested in any .section o[ the btudy to attend courses of lectures by the moti distinguished exponents in England Ona such course, wliicU is of particuldr interest to New Zealanders, opened at, the Loiidon School of Economics on Tue*da>. The Director of the school (Hon. \V. Peinber Iteeyesj it the lecturer, sud ho has tet hirmelf the task of dealing in eight lectures with the whole subject of State tribunals in the colonies ter the regulation of the condition* of labour. Industrial tribunals, he explained, practically originated in certain statutes which had been passed by the different States in tho time whim had elapsed since the passing of tho first Conciliation and Arbitration Act by New Zealand in 1894 They were divided generally into two classes : First, tho*e which were based on the New Zealand law, and, second, those which found their fcource and exemplar in the Victorian l?ac- | tories Act of 1896, under which tho now famous W«t;es Boaids were established. It wan on the latter that the tribunals of several of the other States, and, more important still, that dealing with certain sweated industries in England, were founded Whcrea* the main object of the Victorian system was to stamp out bweoHing and give fair conditions of labour, the primary object of the Arbitration Acts was to piovide substitutes for strike* and lock-out* in divigreements between employer? and employed. The criticism of colonial labour legislation in England had been coustanit, and, in certain cases, marked by a tone of contempt and of sume bit ter nee*, which he hoped they would agree with him was not deserved. That there was room for criticism no one could deny. Legislation of this kind • was ■ bound to be attacked, on the one side by Socialist and on the other by extreme individualists. In the colonies nowadays it vu more often attacked by thorough-going Socialists as a means of keeping capital on its legs. The criticism that wa* of most value was that which went on the assumption tliat Uie^e Aoi* were paved with the object of righting social wrongs and regulating social inequalities. UNIVERSAL APPLICATION OF LAWS. He Asked them to rid their minds of the impression tliat the arbitration laws of the Australasian States were only applicable to certain classes of labour, that- is, the labour of factories and workshop*. That was not true, even of tha Wages Boards, and never was true of the New Zealand tribunals, while, the Ccmmonwealth Act* gave it power to deal with industries stretching over the whole continent. The moat important decision in Australia was that in the- shearer** dispute, while in New- Zealand the greatest difficulty had been experienced in regulating the conditions in coal mine* and gold mines. Mr. Reeves traced in an interesting fashion the conditions which prevailed in Australia and New Zealand in the period which immediately preceded llio passing of the first labour laws. He 1 emphasised the fact that by 1891 nearly the whole of the workers iv tho colonies were entitled to the vote. While trades ! unionism had made great progress it was even more important that labour had determined to enter politics and was already a formidable and growing political power. It was curious to note how very little- of their energy the trades unions had up to then devoted to the securing of special class legislation. During {ho seventies and the eighties the one boon which they claimed was- the eight-hours day, and curiously enough even to-day anything like a regular eight hours day was almost entirely- unknown in law. Though eight hours vas almost universal in most of the colonies it had come in other ways than by direct legislation. The movement originated in 1657, when 700 men belonging to various trades inarched in procession in Melbourne with eight hours inscribed on their banners. By 1890 there were 8000 workers belonging to fifty trades who enjoyed the boon, but he fancied the claim that three-fourths of the workpeople of Victoria worked only eight hours in 1890 was over-drawn. COLONIAL DIFFICULTIES. One of the greatest difficulties in the colonies w« the recurrence of ceatonii unemployment amongst workers in agricultural occupations. No matter how prosperous an agricultural country wm | generally, there was almost sure to i be a certain amount of unemployment at slack periods of the year. The labour of the colonies at the lime of the first legislation was robust, physically strong, expert, and, on 'the whole, sober, law- | abiding and intelligent. It was dec He.l-[ \y a high class of labour with strong ideas about its rights, but it was not | law-breaking, violent, disorderly or dangeroufe It was perhaps far more disposed to welcome State interference and SUte regulation than it would have been hi>d it been ponible for large masses of labour to organise in the same powerful way that wat possible in Eng* land. The manufacturers were generally small and scattered, and it wat difficult, jf nut impossible, to get any concentrated organisation except in certain mining centre*, and by a necessary coincidence the mining centres had on i the whole been storm centre* both in ! Australia and New Zealand. Miners had always had a hand in the more dangerous and difficult strikes, and he would say that the coalminers of Australia and New Zealand constituted tv tlav the most doubtful and most formidable bodies of men as regards the future of what was called compulsory arbitration. Mr. Reeves emphasised the fact that sweating was discovered in both Australia and New Zealand before the times of the worst depression. It was found to exist when times were really .at her prosperous, though it becun-e much worse when the depression came. Tn-da> there was no such thing as general sweating in Australasia, r.njl he thought he would be nble to show that in wliatcvet other ways the acts might not. have been successful they had been extraordinarily successful in stamping out this evil.