THE CASE FOR ARBITRATION

Feilding Star, Volume 7, Issue 2303, 4 September 1929, Page 4

THE CASE FOR ARBITRATION

For Mr Hughes is still {Tie greatest personality fin Australian politics. If he so desired he could organise a party of his own, and it would, need no stretch of (fie probabilities to pick him as the next Prime Minister. He possess most markedly what neither Mr Bruce, Dr Page nor Air Scullin, the Labour leader, can command —a personality with a. genius for polities and diplomacy, ft has been said of Air Bruce that he can do no wrong and of Afr .Scullin that he would nofc dare to go wrong; but William Hughes could; and would do wrong and get away with it successfully, for the masses of • the Australians would say: “Oh, that’s only Bill Hugi-ies’s way!” He is the. one great national figure in Australian public life to-day, and he is ranged determinedly against Air Bruce in the batter’s policy to drop Arbitration as a federal weapon for safeguarding industries. Air Bruce wants to throw all the responsibi.lv on ■to the six States, thus making confusion more confounded; yet, strange to say, Air Bruce, in his Maritime Industries Bill, which is (4 ie present bone of contention and is receiving its second reading debate in ftp Houso in Canberra this week, seeks to gain power for fho Federal Government t° hold the whip of Scorpions over flit* shipping and waterside Labour unions.. ATr Hughes’s speeches against his own Government and m favour of the retention. of all the Arbitration eon|ro' have heen stronger and more effective than even the debating contributions oT Messrs; Scullin and Tlieodoro, leaders of the Labourites. If seems strange to us that Air Bruce should he risking the carrying on or the gpwrnrnenfc of fhe country by (■he Nationalists over the dropping of such .a principle as Arbitration which bias so strong a backing in ‘fife popular chamber, as well as in the Senate, yet the Prime Minister aims at setting up special bodies that care similar to New Zealand’s Conciliation Councils (o meet (file'difficulties (hat so often arise on the waterfronts of Australia. If Conciliation is good federally for the shipping industries of f,he Commonwealth, why not for all industries, and why not have Fecterai. instead of State Conciliation? Apparently New Zealand’s experience wi(fir both Arbitration and conciliation is of no benefit to Air Bruce.