PREFERENCE TO UNIONISTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 14428, 19 July 1907, Page 10

PREFERENCE TO UNIONISTS.

A DEBATE. Last evening, at the Knox Church Schoolroom, teams representing the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church Debating Society and tbe Knox Church Literary and Debating Guild met in a debate on the question of “Compulsory Preference to Unionists.” The Knox Church party, which consisted of Messrs R. Torrens, W. Riddell, K. Williamson and R. Williamson, spoke in favour of compulsory preference, and tho Oxford Terrace party, consisting of Messrs D. N. Adams, C. R. Mackie, A. L. Wilkinson and A. E. Lawrence, against it. The Rev R. S. Gray was chairman, and Mr J. H. Howell judge. The debaters for the affirmative claimed that trade unions were necessary to the Arbitration Act and that compulsory preference was the . best means of keeping the unions alive and rewarding them for their efforts in the past. The non-unionist was really a

lawless person reaping the benefits of laws with the making of which be had i had nothing _to do. The Conciliation I and Arbitration Act gave no legal right, 1 to a non-unionist to demand ©mployj ment. It was a palpable injustice to ’ make the trade muons provide the money for benefits to be reaped by those without the unions. Compulsory preference would greatly increase the memberships of the unions and would remove much of the friction between workman, and workman, and workman and employer. The unions had raised the standard of wages, of work and of life. The arguments put forward for the negative were that no worker, unionist or non-unionist, should bo compelled to join any organisation in order to obtain employment-. The Arbitration Act made it legal for seven men in any one industry to form a union and to obtain an award, and to compel nonunionists to join them or to starve. The compulsory preference to unionists would enfeeble the self-reliance of i men and. would tend to enable the incapable to live on the capable, the

incompetent to bo placed before tho competent. That fault could ba rectilied only by the unions guaranteeing their men as equal, if not superior, to the non-unionist. The decision was given iu favour of the Knox Church party, the judge stating that the winners had scored 4(H points out of a possible 70, while their opponents had scored 37 points.