THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1903. THE ARBITRATION LAW.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12648, 28 April 1903, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1903. THE ARBITRATION LAW.

We cannot affect to be, surprised at the decision which the Court of Arbitration, has given in the case of the alleged breaches of award by the employers in the. Auckland furniture trade. However difficulfc.it may be to believe that the men whom tho employers declared to bo unable to earn the increased minimum wage, fixed by the Court in its award in February last, were in all cases actually incompetent, thai is a> matter which really bears only indirectly upon the issue that was submitted to the Court for decision. That issue went much deeper and involved much graver considerations. It went to the root-of the employer's right to discharge any worker whom he might deem it unprofitable to retain in Jiis service. Consequently it is clear that questions of tho most vital importance to the industrial community were involved. For if it could be held that an employer was compelled to retain in his service a worker who was unable to earn tho minimum wages fixed by the Court, what would such a decision import? Plainly, if it were pushed to the extreme limits "to ( vrhich it could logically be driven, it would be within the power of the Court to compel an employer to continue te carry on his business even though he

could only do so at a. loss. That is, j however, an obyious absiu'difcy. Bub between it and the argument that an employer may bo compelled to retain ; in his service a worker whom he does not feel justified in employing at the | price demanded for his labour, there j is no logical halting-place. The State j may,' through the tribunals it lias | created, determine tho rates of wages' that shall be paid and the hours of labour that shall be observed in an industry, but it cannot deprive the j employer of the right of deciding how' many or how few workmen he shall employ, nor can it deprive, him of the right of exorcising his own judgment as° to the ability or inability of the-workei-3 in his service to earn the wages fixed by the Court as those which should be paid to competent hands. In the Auckland cases, however, the Court was, in effect, invited to declare that the employer had no such right. That, and no loss than that, was involved in the attempt of tho Government, through the Depart urb* of. labour, to convict the em-;

ployers in the, failure trade, d breaches of the awd. MrTole ; the. Crown Prosecutor,who was leading counsel on behalf t the Department and of the union oworkers, advanced the rather extraoiinary proposition, in his opening airess that if the course of conduct iopted by the employers were uplld by the Courb there would be es.blished the art of defeating the Aciin regard to any; award the Courtmight pronounce. "It would," he apied, " mean that i tho Act would be&riG effete, its whole effectiveness beingiestroyed, and that the country woutyhave to fall back upon the chaotic edition previously prevailing in indstrial matters, and that the Legislate would again have to take up the potion and deal with the whole matterle novo." That is, however , , most exavaganfc and miscliievous language and Mr Justice Cooper, in deliverig the .ward of tho Court, properly epressed his entire disagreement witliit. Tho true view to take of the Audand business is to regard it as someting the prevention of which is quite atside the scope of the provisions of fie arbitration law. What is the eifectof an award of the Court in an indttry? Surely ifc is that an employer s not compelled to employ a worker.but supposing that ho dees ompley hh he must pay him the prescribed waes if he is a. compeItent worker, and,if he-is not competent, then pay hii such wages as-he may be ah'lo to em. But it would he monstrous to sirgesfc that an award ■ can be stretched i such a way as to • compel an employe either to give employment to workrs whose services lie does not requre or else to pay them wages in esces of those they are able to earn. As i. matter of fact, an employer is at prfect liberty, under the law, to disinis as many workmen as he chooses aftei an award has come into operation. The workers are protected—and rightly so—while a dispute is pending, bit once a dispute , is settled and the award comes into force the provision of the Act safe- | guarding the worker'i position ceases . to apply, and an employer may then , dismiss all cr any of .iis hands. And j similarly there is, subject to tha awards of the Court, no law on earth to compel him to par a worker wages {in excess of the. amount which ho i thinks that worker's labour is worth ,to him. The emplo/er, who has to find the wages, must necessarily be the ultimate judge bf what he can afford to pay his woiers. If he cannot, in his judgmeit, afford to pay them the minimum wages fixed by ; the Arbitration Cairt—if, in other ' words, they are not sufficiently comjpetent tradesmen t) earn the minimum wage—then either he arranges to engage them at x reduced rate, as the Act and the-sward permit him to do, or else he dispenses with their i services; and it is absurd to say that, J in the latter event, he is doing somei thing that is designed to defeat the object of the Act. It is no part of the policy of the W that an em-ployer-should be compelled to continue to employ any of his servants. If the contrary were tie case, the Act . would be an instrument of tyranny, and it may be suggesUd that it would be far better that t)e. consequences which Mr Tole affected to regard aa likely to flow from ( the dismissal of the charges against the Auckland employers should'be brought about and that the legislation on the subject of conciliation and arbitration should be dealt with again de hove than that an intolerable situation should be produced in which the employers would be robbed of the rights that they possess everywhere else in the world and that tney ( ha-ve always understood they possessed in New Zealand.