THE MINING AGREEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17696, 3 February 1921, Page 4

THE MINING AGREEMENT.

Mr. Massey's success In securing the abandonment of the go-slow strike in the coalmines will be generally appreciated, not only because it ensures the resumption of a normal output, but because it involves the acceptance by the Miners' Federation of arbitration by an external tribunal when the industry itself is unable to settle its domestic troubles. The terms of the agreement should be carefully Btudied by those, engaged in the mining industry, and by all others who still deceive themselves with the idea that industrial disputes can be solved by violent attacks upon the whole community Eighteen days ago, the coalminers, obeying the orders of their federation, " struck on the job" to enforce the demand of their officials that a man dismissed by the Blackball Company should be reinstated. Now they will receive equally peremptory instructions to resume the ordinary rate of work while the merits of the dispute are examined by a tribunal competent to adjudicate upon it. Pledges have been given by the federation, no doubt satisfactory to the Prime Minister, that it will accept this committee's finding, and there is the further stipulation that the committee will not begin its investigation until normal operations have continued for at least seven days. The miners may well a6k themselves what they have gained by this go-slow strike; and if they do consider the matter, as intelligent men, they must realise that they have nothing to set against what they have lost It may be expected with confidence that the special committee will discover a solution for the Blackball squabble; certainly no other practical means of determining the dispute is apparent Something will, however, be gained from the experience of the past three weeks if the federation recognises that the plan aow adopted is the only effective method of settling disputes and, mosreover, the only method that commands the confidence and support of the community. The fundamental weakness of the national agreement is that it makes no practical provision for arbitration; if the federation, profiting by the misk takes it has so often repeated, would agree to such provisions being embodied in the next agreement, it would very greatly modify the suspacum with which its policy and its i actions- are regarded.