THE NEW SOUTH WALES ARBITRATION ACT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13148, 10 April 1906, Page 6

THE NEW SOUTH WALES ARBITRATION ACT.

AMENDMENTS SUGGESTED.

The Premier of New South Wales was not •prepared to reply off-hand to a deputation \ which recently asked him for a substantial -amendment of the Arbitration Act. Th» deputation was formed under the auspices of the Sydney Labour Council, and included i representatives of all the employees' unions registered under the Act. A series of 12 distinct amendments was advocated, and embraced several important points. Mr. Kavanagh, the president of tire Labour Council, who headed the movement, explained that the labour unions were a? strongly in favour of the principles embodied in the Arbitration Act as they had always been, but they protested that recent judgments of the Courts had made the measure useless , the employers, they declared, with large financial powers at their command, had found legal means of making the law inoperative, and the amendments suggested were put forward in the hope of so amplifying the Act as to make it fulfil its functions in every degree. Among other things it was asked that solicitors or barristers should not be permitted to appear before the Court without the consent of both parties to a dispute; thai; at examinations of accounts in camera, the employee union should have the right of being represented, and the Court should be assisted by an accountant; and that the provisions of the Act should be extended to domestic service. Mr. Carruthers, in postponing his reply to the- deputation, said that in some matters he agreed with the representations advanced, in others he did not, and he wished to give his colleagues an opportunity of considering the matter before he committed himself to a definite response.