DOES ARBITRATION STAND CONDEMNED?

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 62, 10 September 1921, Page 4

DOES ARBITRATION STAND CONDEMNED?

The endeavour of the Arbitration Court to regulate wages—without having power to regulate prices or Customs duties —has always resembled a brave but heavily handicapped adventure. Such an attempt at wage-regulation is likely to meet with adverse winds even on a,rising' market, and it is certain to meet with heavy weather on a falling market, aB is amplyr proved by the reception accorded to the Court'si first attempt to reduce wages. Having reached this turn of the tide, it is opportune to" ask : "Has the Arbitration Court out-lived its usefulness? Has the.craft,'that was so considerably buffeted on the prosperous flow, ceased to be seaworthy now ,that the tide has ebbed; and has the moment arrived to scuttle and quit?" The first concern is"the attitude of organised Labour./ Everyone knows that even in the easy times of prosperity—when export values rose with almost unbroken continuity, and with them wagescompulsory arbitration was more than once challenged. Its Labour opponents preached the superiority of private bargaining and the strike; they claimed that they could, by their'own efforts .outside the Court,, make more out of the rising prosperity than the Court would allow; and some unions acted on this principle, and broke away from statutory ' arbitration. Now that deflation Has set in, there is some tendency to accelerate this drift of unions ■ away from the Court, by arguing that if that tribunal did little for Labour in prosperity, in adversity it will do less, and may therefore be treated W negligible. We believe that such an argument is quite ill-founded. "We believe that the Arbitration Court was useful in good times, and will be more useful (not less) in bad times. Particularly to the weaker unions it was a help on the rising market, and it is still capable of j being their protector on the falling | market. If the rewards of militancy seldom outran those of arbitration !in the fat years, militancy will avail still less in the lean years. And we respectfully suggest. that what are known as the " arbitration unions " should think calmly and deeply before being stampeded into an act of desertion by anti-arbitrationists who seek to make false capital out of the.Court's first effort to reverse the upward march in this Dominion of nominal wages. Until lately, prices Mid wages were racing to be first up; to-day they are racing to be last down. Assuming for argument's sake that it is true that, in the upward movement, the Arbitration Court acted as a brake rather than as an accelerator, anyone can see that, on a down-hill course, a brake is an advantage, and may even be a necessity. Under the Arbitration Court, Labour is • likely to be let clown more lightly than would be the case were wage-rates permitted, like prices, to run down competitively to their own level. The cry of " down with the Arbitration I Court " is equivalent to a cry for a " free market." Now, it is within recent memoyy that the farmers, weary of well-doing under the socivlled "tiommandee].1," clamoured for a free market; but arc the

sheep-farmers altogether pleased with it now that they have it? Some of the farmers called for a " free market" at a time when their real interests hardly demanded it; and there is quite a danger that some of the unions, stampeded over the shearers' award, will make a similar error. In this crisis, the advice not to swap horses when crossing a ford may be timely. Fairly measured up, the Arbitration Court, in prosperity, has been a not unfaithful servant to Labour ; and in adversity, its service may be still more vitally needed. If the " arbitration unions " desert the Court, they will please the anti-arbitration section of Labour. Possibly, too, >they will please certain employers. But will they serve their own interests ? On the unions in general, and on Mr. Eeardon in particular, rests a grave responsibility. Would it be good economics to throw away the lifebuoy in the storm? Would it be good polities to desert arbitration for strike-strategy at a time when Labour's best prospect is at the ballot-box? These questions should not be left to the decision of young men in a hurry.