CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION BOARDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11711, 22 July 1901, Page 7

CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION BOARDS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, judged by their present and future results, would be far more correctly expressed by the title of "Industrial Disturbance and Irritating Machines." Possibly many manual workers of to-day might not agree with this, but it must evor be remembered that the present and the future are inseparably linked. Mistakes made to-day will bear , their inevitable Iruit in the near future, and that of a bitter kind. It is most plainly evident that so-called Conciliation Boards are now befi'ig grossly perverted to the disturbing and damaging of industrial life and prosperity. Such is one result of a barefaced class legislation, and which this colony never before witnessed. During some periods of the past there may have been that which bore a slight appearance of it, but never the thing itself, unless in some very small degress, and that unwittingly. Class legislation is an iniquitous tree, and which will bear its own fruit. The selfish biter will be bit, the trapper ; trapped in his own net. It is ever so with wrong-doing and sin. Laws are now being made which can and will be perverted to the blackest selfishness, and thus in time destroy ail publio confidence and trust. Already the confidence of capitalists in the Old Country is severely and most probably permanently shaken, as it regards this colony. ; A mining agent now in London declares that at the mining exchanges the very name of Now Zealand is shunned.,. And

what is the fact in matters here? : Why, that probably 90 per cent, of the expenditure on our goldfields has been supplied from outside the colony, and is' now continually '" being withdrawn, and that chiefly because of onesided and quixotic legislation. Confidence is now supplanted by "fear. Be it ever remembered that labour is next to useless without capital, and vice versa. For anyone to imagine that labour is all-sufficient would be that wisdom which would take off one wheel of a cart, and then expect it >to run well Surely the majority of the members now in Parliament must be woefully blind if they cannot perceivo that the so-called Conciliation and Arbitration Boards each day of their <■' sitting are working permanent harm to the welfare of the colony, and that, too, in tho interests of the very class they are supposed to uphold and benefit. A strange paradox, indeed, yet perfectly true. At the largest and most prosperous of Auckland's goldfields to-day (Waihi) married men are getting out of work. Look also at the condition of labom to-day at both* the Thames and Coromandel districts, how very small is the expenditure; and distrust, because .of stupid legislation, is the main cause. A selfinterested slavery to .present premiercraft seems to-day to be the ruling action of the majority in out Parliament, in place of a courageous independence and patriotism, and thus the colony is being steered to its gradual ruin, unless some reform should be very early brought about by a united and strong determination.l am, etc., N.Z. P.S.—The following is copy of a letter addressed to the Premier by a well-known citizen of Auckland:--" R. J. Seddon, Esq., Premier. Sir, You are warned as in the sight of God, that the class legislation and Government which you are fostering and perpetuating is iniquitous, now and always, and anywhere, because unrighteous and unjust. If persisted in, i* must inevitably bring a heavy curse, sooner or later, upon your own head. Also, your lines of legislation followed must and will eventually bring an increase in want and suffering in the future upon the very class you earnestly, yet blindly, seek to benefit. Anyway, class legislation is true wickedness. ; Just only read for yourself what . God Himself says upon governing, viz., 11. Samuel xxiii. 3, 4, and do not vex an already long-suffering people."—l am, etc., N.Z.