THE DIXON CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13766, 3 June 1908, Page 7

THE DIXON CASE.

ARBITRATION ACT DEFECTS. . I .[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN COItRESI'ON'DKNT.]

Wellington, Tuesday. Referring to the Dixon case the Dominion says : " It is a hard one, the harder because i: the Government had .had the courage to pa,.*; the Arbitration Amendment Act of last year lie would have been free from any voracious demand for back pay, but that by no means converts him into a martyr. That the law' is bail, so bail that the Government intends, "or at any rate proposed last year, to remove the particular unfairness resented by Mi. Dixoif i\o<m not alter the situation, nor can the suggestion be entertained that the protection of Mr. Dixon from an admittedly unjust enactment would have been a, small grace on the- part of a. Government, which had already violated the fundamental law of British' I 'government by protecting a great body of offenders, the aiders and abettors of ttrikes, from the punishment provided in the soundest and most salutary .-eelion in the whole of our industrial legislation. Had the Government always enforced the Arbitration Act with firmness and impartiality, Mr. Dixon would "have received nobody's sympathy. The significance of the incident is a remarkable public protest against the administration that has turned New Zealand into the land in which men find it pays t'helll to defy the law by going mi strike. The public realises that Mr. Dixon was abandoned by the Governmeirl. to the sharp edge of a, law that it intends to repeal, while the people who aided and abetted the Blackball strike have been permitted to escape the operation >f an enactment that the Government declares will be strengthened and made more effective.