LABOUR DISPUTES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4426, 5 August 1901, Page 3

LABOUR DISPUTES.

ARBITRATION COURT. muss ASSOCIATION. CHRISTCHURCH, August 3. When the hairdressers’ and tobaccon* ists’ case came before the Arbitration Court tc-day, the employers asked for an adjournment on the ground that a writ of prohibition was pending against the Court' on the point whether the hairdressers came under the Act. Mr Justice Cooper refused an adjournment, stating that three or four months had passed and no steps had been taken to enter an injunction till now. Ho con* sidered that the employers had been playing fast and loose with the Court, and he would go on with the case until stopped, if stopped at all. Both parties,- however, wished an adjournment till Monday, and the case stands over till then. Mr Justice Cooper stated to»day that the Arbitration Court expected, by the end of three weeks, to have deter uined all actions pending up to Ist June in Christchurch and Dunedin. _ The Court also hoped to have all actions pending and those likely to occur -his \e„r cleared off by the end of the year. All arrears in the North Island would be disposed of by the middle of November. Speaking on the subject of the indenturing of apprentices, his Honor said that personalia he favoured the old Eng* lish system of indenture. In his opinion it was not in the interests of industry as a whole that apprenticeship should be done away with until the colony had technical schools like those in America, where a youth could learn his trade probably better than under a manufacturer. Special to the 'Times.” WANGANUI, August 3. The “Herald” last night had an article on “Labour Disputes,” conclud* ing as follows: —If the agitators succeed in convincing the Conciliation Board that local bodies must not bo allowed to utilise their men when other work is slack in such work as ordinary tarring, white*washing, 'and the painting of sheds, etc., it means that these men will bo. thrown out of work in the slack season, and that their places will he taken by members of the Painters’ Union at rates of wages far in excess of the value of th© work required. Surely this is not a legitimate result of the Act which was passed to protect workmen and not to deprive one sec. tion of them of remunerative employ* ment in order that another section should be provided with work at exorbitant rates of payment. From cue end of the colony to the other the feeling is growing stronger day by day that these eoscalled “labour disputes” are not onto vexatious but detrimental to the real interests of workers, who, when they have a real cause of dissatisfaction, have, surely the remedy within their reach in the Arbitration Court, which is presided over by an impartial official