NEW SOUTH WALES ARBITRATION ACT.

Evening Star, Issue 12208, 28 May 1904, Page 2

NEW SOUTH WALES ARBITRATION ACT.

Ttitot. tmirt he something deplorably wrong when the ChitT Justice of New South.Wales iVels called upon, after little over two years' experience of the Arbitration Act, to say from the judgment seat that the measure " was in derogation of the common 'law, <hat it oncroacLed on the liberty of "the subject as regarded the person and "property, and that it interfered with the "liberty of action of both employer and 'employee." nis Honor went on to say -bat "it prevented one from giving a/'d " the othei from obtaining employment cx- " cept on term 3 settled by the Court. It "deprived the employer of the conduct of "his own business. The Act was produc- " tivc of the most alarming and deplorable "amount of litigation, with, ite concomitant " ii'.-fa;liiig between employers and ero- " pkiyees>, who were forced into host'.!-? "camps. Ho believed that the rb',ect of "j>ns:.ing the Act was to prom j peace "and good-will between employ a and em- " ployee, but he feared that it had not had '' tbiit elFeet" This is an extraordinary ij';.l-,etJ3V!7:t—one that will not be allowed to rxisy without ohallen-jw. For our own part, we do r.-ot thii.k that anything so drKidiul ;;-> ;i.T F. ?.[. Druiey predicts can ensue from ;rjy Arhitni-Joii Act If the Act t» tamed oiit in a spirit of mutual respect and symp.Liliy, aid with a determination to make the b«>: o! t'm position, then beyond question it will prove infinitely suptiicr to the ctne.l policy which landed master auti man in devist-.-tiag s'n&es. The Lirtei-y of New Zealand for the last niui yeaTS under its Arbitration A.-t i 3 the bent ar>swf.r to nil nidi pe.'-simistic foi-t K ists. After jvcij alW.tr,ce for the m : *take."> and bknders, for th-? and deviations from, the-orij-insj mention of the framers of the nvasure, no ono would serionsly advomte its refxul or endorse Chief Jurtice D.\rky'u censure in its entirety. There w.n, however, be nothing hut troubla and hatred if employer and employee propose to approach each other in the way they are ail'.'rtrd to be'doing in New South Wales. The m-yje-s of all Arbitration Act* is de-I-tndsnt on a recognition of that humane spirit, which is abroad, of self-facrificc, and the abandonment of the old idea that the employer is conferring a favor'in giving a nan work or that ir-dustrial enterprise* tan ho conducted leg-irdlrts of the rights of those w'>x> contribute eo largely to their succe3. But while that conctption of the relation of Capital and Libor continues among even a section of the community no Arbitration Court can work smoothly. On the other hand, labor organisations wili have to 1» iictiviW by a greater and fuller appreciation of the "desirability of cultivating that "sweet reasonohlcness" which in their cov.ticih is in the inverse ratio to its opposite. Mr Wise, who is largely responsible for ihe New South Wales Arbitration Act, repudiates the Oh .f Justice's strictures, and questions !;i o ood taste in speaking as he did. The Una is that statements of this, character are eagerly seized on by interested parties to enforce the se.lfuh policy of a particular few. We have sufficient ffdeh in the people, of our sister colony to believe that when the prcamre of busiiuss now before the New South Waks Court ha 3 been reduced to order and the benefits arising from the operations of the Act ave more widely understood, the harsh language and savage criticism of to-day will"give pk.ee to a more rational frame of mkd and a deteiminatiou at all cost not to revert to the evil time of strikes and lock-outs.