THE ARBITRATION COURT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8281, 11 May 1907, Page 8

THE ARBITRATION COURT.

A DIFFERENCE AMONGST THE MEMBERS. (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, May 11. Mr S. Brown, employers' representative on the Arbitration Court, writes to the Star requesting publication of his reasons for dissenting from the Waihi miners' award. He says:—"All former presidents of the Court, when in the district, delivered awards from the bench. I had my reasons all ready, and had the usual course ben adopted they would have been delivered also. The unusual course adopted by the President leaves me no other means of obtaining fair play than to ask you to publish my reasons with this letter. It has been the custom of former Presidents to read over the completed award with members to see if all is correct. I have not seen the award since it was in rough manuscript notes till it appeared in the Press. I have, therefore, no means of knowing if it is correct and contains matters as they were put. I i delivering the recent Gisborne judgment here, the President forgot to state that I had dissented. No other President ever forgot in like circumstances." The writer, after qroting Mr Justice Cooper on the point, asserts that the Court was not justified in increasing the rate of wp.ges because one or two employers are prosperous unless there are other substantial and sound reasons for doing so, and they have also to consider what the effect would be upon the industry as a whole and upon the workers themselves. In his opinion there was not submitted a substantial reason for the alteration since the agreement was made by the miners themselves. He considered the alterations made may have a detrimental effect on the district, and it will be more difficult to get foreign capital.