LAW OF ARBITRATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 May 1914, Page 5

LAW OF ARBITRATION

SURREPTITIOUS CHANGE. , ' IN THE GUISE OF CONSOLIDATION?. {By Telegraph—Special to the Star. '' I ;•/" DUNEDINY ThislDay. •; "A surreptitious change in the law hi thej, guise of consolidation;", was the language used by Mr. Justice Sim yesterday in a deferred judgment regarding_ an application for the appointment of an-'umpire under the Arbitration Act. It had reference to the Consolidated , Statutes, and as, the Chief Justice (Sir R. Stout) was head of the Commission that carried out that work, the, members of Unassembled bar became keenly interested in Judge Sim's remarks. His Honor said: "It is rather sta<tHr>j[ to find that such a change in the law should have been effected in the ?uise of , consolidation. It is not referred-to in the final report of the Consolidated Commission and this fact suggests that this change was made without their knowledge This suggestion is confirmed ly t l :* fact that in Section 6 of-the A-;t of !£CB; which reproduces Section 7 of the Aft, of 1890, the provision for the appointment b> the Court of a third arl.itrat.6r has br-en dropped out. This cau.iot have -h;»u incidental, because the etpvs'Mon ' third aibitrator" is used seve-u times in Section 7. The omission must have been made deliberately and by some person so ignorant of the subject of arbitration as not to know the difference between an umpire and a third arbitrator. He thought apparently that a. third arbitrator was only an umpire, and that the provision in the English Act and the New Zealand Act ♦ for the appointment of a third arbitrator was only so much verbiage which might safely be discarded. The. report made by the Commissioners on the 28th July, 1908, throws an interesting light on the question of the authorship'of."this change. The Arbitration Act'evidently must havfe been included in that -volume of Consolidated Statutes which was saught'to be imposed on the Commissioners at the outset of their labours. This, they say, was more in the nature of a code than a consolidation, and entaikd them in. mUch needless labour. They had to spend much time and trouble in revising and restoring th« text of the Acts. .The present condition of the Arbitration Act shows plainly that their efforts in this direction were not always successful. How many more similar "improvements have been made surreptitiously in the statute law of the larid ; time alone will disclose."-