THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1908. STATE REGULATION, OF TRADES AND INDUSTRIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12212, 6 March 1903, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1908. STATE REGULATION, OF TRADES AND INDUSTRIES.

AT the Arbitration Court yesterday, Mr. Justice Cooper stated that during its sessions at Auckland it had cleared off all the arrears of business which had been accumulating for a considerable time. He spoke in the same way as does a judge who has disposed of arrears of criminal cases or an accumulation of civil litigations. Even Mr. Cooper .does not seem yet to see the absolute difference between his position in the Arbitration Court and that, of a Supreme Court judge administering the law. As to his gratification at disposing of the arrears in Auckland, all that we can say is that if the other decisions of the Court result like that in the furniture trade, the Court has exceedingly little reason for congratulation. The fact is that the whole aspect of the working of this piece of legislation has changed. Conciliation, which was the main feature of the movement which led to the passing of Mr. Reeves' Act, has been abandoned, and the Court now assumes to bring under strict State regulation, in the minutest particulars, the whole of the trades and industries of the colony. The thing never was before attempted in the most despotic country in the world, and the experiment can scarcely be expected to be a success now. The Court is now loaded with the regulating of everything pertaining to the whole trade and industries of the colony, and that is a burden that it cannot bear. It has assumed the task of making stringent laws that every part of the colony must be perfectly uniform in respect to wages, hours of labour, and all the conditions of employment. That is certainly a huge task, which cannot be accomplished, and the very attempt to realise it will be a great injury to the colony. Certain places are adapted for certain industries, and they should be allowed to groW up there naturally. Take the United Kingdom. All the industries of the country could not be carried on at London, because the cost of living is higher there, and the facilities for each particular trade are not to be found there. These industries, therefore, grew at Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, and other places. And if the Parliament of England were to pass a law that every industry, no matter where it was carried on, should pay the same wages as if it were at London, the manufacturing trade of Great Britain would soon be at an end. But it was not possible for the Arbitration Court to escape this problem, and it was not possible for the Court to avoid endeavouring to settle it in one way, and that is, by insisting on uniformity all over the colony. Naturally it comes that the most expensive place for anj manufacture to be carried on fixes the scale for all the rest. Then the Court has to descend to infinite minutia? which it is just as incompetent to deal with. It is positively ludicrous to see a judge of the Supreme Court with two assessors wrestling with the pro- : blem of how much time shall b& allowed to a girl to stitch a buttonhole. In some of the "logs" there are positively thousands of entries as to the time and payment to be allowed for such things as making fractional parts oi children's knickerbockers. The Court, in irritation and despair, has had to confess that it could not settle these infinite details, and has had to call in two experts and hand its functions over to them.

For several years past trade has been good in New Zealand, and in ordinary circumstances wages would also have been higher than prevailed before. They have been raised by awards of the Arbitration Court, and must remain at the rate fixed till the Court modifies the award. But suppose hard times come, how is the Court to deal with them T It is our experience in New Zealand that an absolute and severe depression may come in trade and business on a sudden, i whereas good times come gradually. What would be the result in the. case of ? sudden depression? The Court could not be appealed to, because it might be a year or more before any particular case was reached, even if employers were to take prompt measures to bring the case before the Court, and in all probability they would not do so. The trades and industries would simply collapse. Anyone who knows how. business gradually decreases in any trade consequent upon the advent of dull times, will be able to conceive how difficult it will be to set in motion the machinery of the Act so as to meet a change. The whole subject is one of great interest for the community. , In Court we hear of it as simply a case between the manufacturers of furniture and their employees, but it will be a very serious matter for this city if the furniture trade -disappears. The 'Court is about to take its departure after > having, as it believes, settled all the industrial matters of the district. We understand that some of those connected.

with the unions are of opinion that some clauses of the Act can be brought into operation against the employers. There ought to be some such power to make the Act logical and complete. But any such attempt would be absurd and impossible.