PUBLIC OPINION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14976, 23 April 1909, Page 8

PUBLIC OPINION.

FROM YESTERDAY’S NEWSPAPERS. (By Telegraph.) •THE MACHINERY OF CONCILIATION, The Arbitration Court has undoubtedly taken the right course concerning the case in which an Auckland union of employees ha/d refused to discuss before the Conciliation Council the merits of a dispute in which it sought an award. The action of the union was one of most flagrant contempt for the law, for the whole spirit of the new Act is to extend the principle of conciliation in the settlement of disputes. The union took up an indefensible attitude of hostility to the chairman of the Conciliation Council, declined to proceed with its case before that tribunal, and, passing over the Council, sought the intervention of the Court. The union by that action forfeited any claim it might have to sympathy, and raised the very justifiable suspicion that its animus against the chairman carried greater weight in its deliberations than respect for the (aw which provided the machinery to solve the differences with employers.— “ New Zealand Times.” MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. It is a truism that a community is governed as well as it deserves to be. An apathetic public will usually get apathetic government; listlessness breeds listlessness. Tiredness is infeotious. Only six days remain for the weighing of the candidate, and the scales should be kept busy.—“ Evening Post.”