Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1912. IS IT A DEADLOCK?

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 8, 10 January 1912, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1912. IS IT A DEADLOCK?

The City Council last night devoted another sitting to the tramway dispute, and the general result was substantially in accordance' with expectation. Th© council very wisely rejected the proposal of the Tramways Union that the matter in dispute should be referred to | a special board of arbitrators for adjui dication. Acceptance of this proposal | would have amounted, as we pointed out when it was first made, to the abandonment by the council of one of its primary functions in favour of an outside body which, even after it had come to a decision, must have left to the council the undivided responsibility of faking action. The occasion of the proposal involved it in an additional absurdity. The union objected to the decision of the council that either party to the dispute might be represented by counsel, and the enquiry was adjourned from Thursday last to yesterday, in order to allow its executive to reconsider the position. The result of this reconsideration was a repetition of the refusal to take part in the enquiry if lawyers were admitted, and the proposal that the enquiry should be transferred from the council to a board of arbitrators. This proposal was plainly irrelevant to the question of procedure immediately in dispute, since it challenged the competence of the council to conduct the enquiry at. all, and not the propriety of its decision on the right to professional assistance. The council has been blamed for making the initial mistake of conducting what should have been a departmental or committee enquiry in public. But it must be remembered that publicity Was regarded as essential by the union, and that their stipulation for a public enquiry was conceded by the Mayor as a necessary condition for the averting of an apparently imminent strike. We certainly think that the concession was a mistake, but it was not unnaturally regarded by the Mayor as the lesaer of the two evils, and the council • could hardly repudiate an arrangement by which he had secured the forbearance of £h& union from a very disastrous proceeding. When once the union's demand for publicity had been conceded, we cannot •cc that the council could with any show of decency refuse the request of the other party to be allowed the assistance of counsel. The union'K motive in stipulating for publicity was doubtless that the evidence to be adduced against Inspector Fuller might make a strong impression on the publio mind, which had certainly been influenced in the other direction by such fragments of the council's proceedings as had previously been published. The motive- was not in itself an unworthy one, since th* public us the ultimata tribunal in such a matter as this, but it could not be worthily indulged under conditions that would entail injustice upon the other party. There would, however, have 'been a gross injustice in requiring a layman to appear in public to deal personally with some twenty 1 charges ranging over a considerable number of years and intimately concerning his business capacity and his private character. It would have been a, travesty of justice to compel any man to face 6uch an ordeal, with his career and perhaps his livelii bogd, ..(&|k.cd.-.._upoß the^^atttg,^ without

allowing him the protection which he could claim as of right if he had been merely accused of riding a bicycle after eunset without a light or keeping an unregistered dog. When the union intsisted on publicity, the council therefore attached a condition that must commend [ itself to tho judgment of every independent and fair-minded man. Yet after being allowed ample time for consideration and reconsideration the union deter : mined to withdraw from the enquiry rather than submit to this just and necessary condition. We do not suggest that the men. were influenced by the desire either to inflict a deliberate injustice upon the accused officer or to clutch at a pretext for retiring from the investigation which they had demanded. But we have no hesitation in eaying that they have committed a grievous tactical blunder, which must seriously weaken whatever measure of public eympathy they could previously command. Tho withdrawal of the union, of coursoj knocked the bottom out of the enquiry, but 'Inspector Fuller and his counsel were properly given tho opportunity of dealing with charges which, though not supported by evidence, had nevertheless become public property through their submission, to the City Council last week and their subsequent publication in the press. A one-sided enquiry is not a very convincing kind of proceeding, but it is, nevertheless, safe to say that a considerable number of the charges were satisfactorily disposed of. If the union had even had legal advice in the preparation of the charges their number must have been materially reduced, and the case relieved of matter that was in the first instance" prejudicial to Inspector Fuller but has now redounded to the prejudice of the union. Tho two charges which to the uninitiated presented the most serious appearance were disposed of ac soon as the dates wore produced. Both of these offences ( were six years old or more; both had been reported and dealt with at the timo; and Mr.' Fuller has got, his promotion in spite of them. In a few other cases the charges might be described as, on tho face of them, trivial ; in one or two others their meaning was beyond the power of Inspector Fuller or his counsel to decipher. As to the rest, though they might have assumed a much grayer appearance if the union had retained counsel arid called witnesses, it does not appear that there wais anything of a eerious character that had not already been considered by tho department. ' The- general result must certainly be to strengthen Inspector Fuller's case and weaken that of hie accuser* in the eyes of the public. It cannot, of course, be said that the matter which the council has finally to settle on the 25th has been conclusively determined by the default of the union yesterday. The position, however, is that the case was freely said to have been put in too favourable a light for the inspector, by tho only part of the council's proceedings on the 19th December which took place in public; that the union »wae then given the opportunity of formulating charges and proving them at a public enquiry; and that at the appointed hour the union declined to produce evidence and withdrew from the case on a ground which to every unbiased judgment must . appear inadequate. The union's case, which did not ceem strong three weeks ago, therefore seems much weaker now.