THE BONUS AWARD

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 15 December 1920, Page 5

THE BONUS AWARD

MR REAR-DON'S CRITICISM OF 1 THE DECISION.

(By Telegraph—Special to the Star.) ' utu- +^ WE%I.NGTON, Dec. 15. lhis three shillings bonus is a contemptuous judgment," declares Mr M J. Reardon, who represented the Wellington Trades Council at the rehearing of the bonus decision by the Arbitration Court. "It is," he says, "equivalent to a farthing damages in a libel action or a breach of promise. ' The remarkable chain of reasoning by which the Court's pronouncement in favour of nine shillings is reduced to three is probably the most astonishing thing ever delivered by a Court of Justice in this country." ■ | Mr Reardon suggests that a large' part of the judgment is simply a para- j phrase of the employers' case. The Court, in effect, says that the workers are entitled to nothing, but as an act 01 chanty they shall get three shil-; lings, with some fatherly advice as! j to exercise thrift, as if workers and their wives have not already exercised much ingenuity to reduce ex- ' penses. | "The Court, at the dictation of the employers, has," he concluded, "aban- i doned its own method of arriving at a decision, and the workers must be convinced that it is now nothing bet-; ter than a blind apologist of arbitrary ', power." (