THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1908. THE BLACKBALL STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13707, 25 March 1908, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1908. THE BLACKBALL STRIKE.

The Blackball Miners' Union hag resolved to defy tho Arbitration Court,, to pay no fine and to ignore tho award. ' It is hardly necessary to say that unless tho Government can discover some way of asserting the authority of the law -and of enabling the Company to carry on its industrial operations, without interference, upon the terms defined by the Court, the knell of Industrial Arbitration in New Zealand has been sounded. And what prospect, is there of the law being upheld and the decision of the Arbitration Court upheld 1 We have apparently arrived, somewhat earlier than might have been anticipated, at the dead wall which many not unfriendly critics foresaw .would bo found, sooner or later, across tho path of the Act. So long as industrial awards wore acceptable to the labour unions and only objectionable to employers, it was possible to enforce them.. So long as every award advantaged the unionists and only pressed upon the employers, the Act was proclaimed as the last word in industrial arbitration and conciliation, and was hailed as an unqualified benefit to the wageearners of the country. But it was always seen, and frequently pointed out—among ' others by the New

South Wales Commissioner sent over to investigate the New Zealand system— the Act would have to be proved when the Arbitration Court gave awards adverse to the claims of the labour unions before it could be held to have taken its place among the permanent legislation of the country. It waS ( generally supposed that this difficulty would hardly be encountered until a turn in the tide of national prosperity necessitated a lowering of wages in order to enable production to be carried on upon a less profitable basis. But the Act has been practically shattered, is being broken into pieces before our eyes, without any turn in the tide of prosperity, without any award reducing wages having been given—simply because unionists cannot obtain from the Arbitration Court everything that they choose to ask for. According to this point of view, which finds favour not only at Blackball but in an unhappily large number of labour unions throughout the Dominion, the Court exists wholly and solely for the purpose of registering as binding upon employers any claims which may.be put forward by unionists, and not for the purpose of adjudicating, impartially and equitably, between the dual parties to an industrial agreement. The Arbitration Court, sitting at Blackball to consider the circumstances under which the miners' union ceased work, found the action taken by the union, quite unjustifiable, and imposed upon it a sufficient but not crushing fine, found the actions of the company perfectly legal and absolved it. Forthwith we are told that the fine will not be paid, that the union will not submit, and that the Court will be ignored as' completely as though it did not exist. The strike continues, the company's operations are suspended, and funds are being provided for the strikers by sympathetic unions.

The attitude of the Blackball Miners' Union might be overlooked if it were an isolated instance of unionist feeling towards the Arbitration Court. One must never expect perfection in human nature, and it in no way invalidates the ordinary law of the land that occasionally it is defied. For the ordinary law is so interwoven with the organisation of British States, and is so completely accepted by all good citizens, that it is able to assert itself very promptly and effectively against any and every attempt to ignore it. If labour unionists were generally devoted to the principle of industrial arbitration we might still have occasionally outbreaks of resistance to it, but it would stand and endure because they would, as a body, unite with the great majority of the public to enforce the law. But in the matter of arbitration it has been steadily preached for years, by many prominent unionists, that arbitration is a failure because it does hot give them all they would like to -have: some assert that it .does not give them all they would obtain if it did hot exist, and many more contend that- they can usually make better terms by meeting the employers in friendly discussion.. When the Minister for Labour promulgated last year his proposals for the amendment of tho Arbitration Act, they were widely objected to by the organised unions for the very reasons which commended them to the general public: for their elimination of the professional agitator, for their provisions for the enforcement of penalties against unionists, and for their inauguration of trade boards at which representative and interested; employers and employees might settle the labour conditions for the various industries. . Instead of the Arbitration Act being popular among those who profess to spe'ak for the great mass of. organised workers—-who have been organised, it should be remembered, under tho protection and for the purposes of the Act— it is the subject of more adverse criticism from them than any other enactment on the Statute Books. As far as can be gathered the only way to popularise it with this section is to make unionism-compulsory upon all workmen and to leave it quite optional with the labour unions whether they will submit or not submit labour questions to arbitration, and whether they will subsequently accept or not accept the awards of the Court. This is the Blackball position. Whatever strained relations may have existed between the Company and the miners, the law exists for the very purpose of preventing strained relations from developing into open ruptures, and it would be the doom of all. law and order if a Court could adjudicate upon anything but the facts adduced before it and upon the law of the land. The miners, urged on by ill-advised leaders, manufactured an opportunity for handicapping the Company and disorganising its working arrangement by altering "crib," or "lunch," time. Whatever may be said on the question it is plain' that no local custom can justly be altered excepting by mutual consent or by award of Court, and. that it is preposterous on the part of a union to claim a power which is tantamount to taking the management of business out of the employers' hands. Yet this impossible contention originated the trouble, and all the incidental results and side issues that are being alleged and discussed only serve to obscure the fact that the Arbitration Court could have given no other decision. Had the Company attempted to alter "crib" time without consulting its employees WO should have heard no protest from employers when it was promptly fined as it certainly would have been—nor should we have heard of any refusal to pay the fine or of any intention to ignore the Court. And when the Miners' Union advertises to the Dominion that it considers itself above the law to which all employers must submit there can be no doubt of the effect upon Industrial Arbitration. No grossly unfair and utterly one-shied law can possibly stand, when its unfairness and one-sidedncss become patent to the general public; and unless the Government asserts the authority of the Arbitration Court at Blackball the people of the Dominion will not be very long in forming an opinion upon the eouity of such legislation.