INDUSTRIAL ARBITRATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12537, 26 June 1901, Page 4

INDUSTRIAL ARBITRATION.

The Federal Minister for Trade and Customs seems to have been very frank with the deputation of employers that waited- on him with regard to the pro* posedi industrial arbitration legislation. Australia will go through) mutth the same experience as New Zealand did before sbS has an arbitration system in working order, but we do not doubt that the bear future will see her, like New Zealand, “ 6i country without strikes.” It is singoltif, by the way, how Ale H. D. Lloyd’s phrase lias caught the fancy of the world. It makes an almost daily appearance in American journals, it is common in current English literature, and now we find it heading an appreciation" of New Zealand by M. Rterre Duthid in a. French, .review, M. Duthiej, :Jh^Abe'6»k6'iruok^^-i''idl^pliiicai^6tuden.t3:

must be, by the success of the economic experiment now being tried in this colony, ■and he is shrewd enough to see where the element of success really, lies. Even if the Conciliation Boards and Arbitration Court were willing to concede all the workers’ demands there is a paint beyond which concessions cannot be made with safety to the industry concerned, and if too heavy a tax is imposed on the industry either the conditions must be readjusted or the industry will fail. The Arbitration Court awards, as we know, invariably give due weight to this consideration —the recent bootmakers’ dispute is a familiar illustrationI—but 1 —but if the Act were less carefully administered the unalterable economic law would still operate. In several instances the Arbitration Court has held that workers in particular industries arc not entitled to more liberal conditions in the existing state of those industries, a fact which seems to have been overlooked by the Australian employers who waited upon Mr Kingston. If bad times were to come, if, as the deputation' put it, the pendulum were to swing the other 'way, the workers would accept the altered conditions, even as the New Zealand employers are accepting the present awards. We have no fear that the labour tribunals will ever fail to effect a satisfactory adjustment of disputes, whether the cases are brought at the instance of the masters or of the workers. The Federal Bill has already been read a first time in the Lower Mouse, but the deputation was quite justified in asking that further progress should be delayed until thfe publication of the report drawn up by the Commission which recently visited New Zealand. The Commissioner referred to, we presume, is Judge Backhouse, who was appointed by the Government of New South Wales to visit the other. States, with the view of obtaining information on the question of labour legislation. Having watched the proceedings c.f the New Zealand tribunals, and of the Victorian wages boards. Judge Backhouse considered that there would be no need to go further, and his report will shortly be presented. It is impossible to believe that the report can be other than favourable to the. New Zealand principle. Dealing fairly with the system, as it must do, it is bound to hold that the general effect of the legislation has been admirable, that it has raised the wages of the workers and improved their conditions of work, without injuring the industries, that it has not in any sense driven capital out of the country, and that the industrial vigour of the colony is to-day more marked than it has ever been. Judge Backhouse may bold with the French critic, that, to achieve these results, the system 1 must be backed by a protective tariff and by immigration restrictions, and he may find weaknesses in the details; but its principle ia unassailable in its soundness, Mr Kingston, we may be sure, has not failed to study the New Zealand laws with all core, and we may gather his opinion from the fact that his own Bill is described as a close copy of the New Zealand law. Tho reform is bound to oome in Australia, and it is sheer folly to object, as e&ntQ politicians have done, that it could net reach the Chinese and the Kanakas. Ia this direction, as in many others, Federal legislation promises to be both in* teesting and flattering to New Zealanders.