THE H.B. TRIBUNE MONDAY APRIL 28, 1924. A TENTATIVE PROPOSAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIV, Issue 117, 28 April 1924, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE MONDAY APRIL 28, 1924. A TENTATIVE PROPOSAL

The fact that the executive of the Amalgamated bociety of Railwaymen have submitted a proposal of their own with regard to the setting up of a fresh tribunal before which to discuss their grievances against the Government may be interpreted as a good sign. Previous negotiartions were broken off by them most abruptly while the constitution of such a domestic court was under discussion, and it was clearly for them to make the first advance towards renewal of the broad proposal. But the question which at once arises in the onlooker’s mind, particularly the mind of the onlooker suffering from a paralysis of employment or business, is why it should have been deemed necessary, or even politic, to call a strike before putting forward the suggestion now made. It would havg been quite as easy of formulation, and much more easy of consideration, had the men continued at their jobs. The condition and atmosphere of open conflict which a strike creates —especi- ’ ally a strike launched in the middle of more or less friendly negotiations for arbitration —is not calculated to ease any tension that may have existed. It, in fact, makes even justifiable concession all the more difficult as bearing the appearance of being forced at the bayonet’s point and as being granted as the result not of rational conviction, but of intimidation —a word which the workers themselves are given to using with a note of loathing and resentment when the boot is on the other leg. Another feature about the proposal submitted is that the A.S.R.S. executive have apparently assumed to nominate the whole personnel of their arbitration tribunal. This is surely something a little put of the way in such cases, and might be taken as designed to cast the onus of an apparently invidious refusal upon the other side. So far as our experience goes it is entirely customary in such cases to leave each •party to nominate its own arbiters, ' or for the parties to meet and agree upon the constitution of the tribunal, as was in the first instance I done in the present case. 'So far as the names submitted are known to us there may be no exception to take to any of them, but in nominating the whole court there, is a savour of dictation that might very easily 1 prove unpalatable to the other side. That, however, is a minor consideration, and one which the Minister has already endeavoured to modify in the language in which his preI liminary acknowledgment of the ; proposal is cast. In that he has evidently made an effort to construe the proposal into the more general form which it should in the first place have taken.

The rocks upon which the proposal seems likely to split are, firstly, the insistence that the wages item must be considered and determined before and entirely apart from all other factors in the case, and, secondly, the maintenance of the strike until this condition is accepted. It was on the first of these points that the Wages Board set up -with the approval of the executive was broken up. The chairman, whose appointment was made by mutual consent, held that the question of mere money wages must be considered in conjunction with other questions raised and could only be fairly adjudged with reasonable regard for other special conditions of the service. When he took up this attitude the A.S.R.S. representatives withdrew. The public have, we fancy, heard quite enough of the details of some of the issues involved to agree broadly with the view taker by the chairman, although they may not agree with all the contention: advanced by the Minister. This being the case, it is more than likely that the weight of public opinior will be against the maintenance o the attitude then adopted on behal of the employees. Then, again, it ii impossible not to recognise the de plorable position that has beei created by the hasty calling of th< strike, and so long as it is continues • so long also does that position con tinue. Whatever may be grantei while it lasts can scarcely but b considered as granted under a’ attempt at compulsion, a yieldin ’ to which the very men them sei ve would be the. first to regard con temptuously as a yielding to feai . It is in this resnect that the situ? tion will demand the most delicat r handling by the Government. wh<

merely acting in wliat they deem the interests of the whole community and have no special personal interest in the outcome. Possibly by the time this is iq print their answer will V ave been made public.