ARBITRATION.

Matamata Record, Volume X, Issue 875, 10 November 1927, Page 4

ARBITRATION.

The more the exemption proposal is considered the more dangerous it appears. It owes its origin, we are convinced, to agitation based upon insufficient knowledge and superficial study. The Government has acted unwisely: in yielding to such agitation; but it is not wholly to blame. Those people who have condemned the Arbitration Court and the system because it did not give them all they desired are largely culpable. Labour cannot be held guiltless. Before the farmer ’ opposition was voiced, . where did the hottest condemnation of the Court come from if not from some of the extremist Labour leaders? They dubbed the Court an instrument of the employers and urged the workers to declare themselves outside its jurisdiction. When Mr. Jessep attacked the Arbitration system recently he was able to say correctly that some Labour leaders also opposed it. Other organisations and individuals taking a short view, have also condemned the Court. At the time, we pointed out the unwisdom of undermining the arbitration method unless something better could be put in its place. The present Bill proposes to remove some sections of industry from the Act and to put nothing in place of the Court except the compulsory conference —a most inadequate substitution. It is essential that those people who have hitherto taken a short view, Labour leaders and others, should now consider how much of their opposition was bluff, how much was the complaint of a disappointed litigant, and how r.uch was genuine disapproval of the system. It is time to take a long view.—Evening Post, Wellington.