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Otago Daily Times, Issue 13857, 21 March 1907, Page 6

THE ARBITRATION ACT. It is not quite easy to follow the reasoning by wliioli our Wellington contemporary, the Kvening Post-, arrives at tlm conclusion that it is not sound policy on the part of the Crown to exercise the power that lias been employed, through the issuo of writs of attachment, to enforce, the payment of the penalties inflicted by the- Arbitration Court upon the .strikers in Canterbury. It is doubtless true that Parliament never contemplated, when it amended the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act in 1003, that resort to such ii jwmgg would be had

order lo assort effectively the authority of the Court. The fact is that the measure was passed in the liuriy and bust-lo of the concluding days of the session, when much was taken for granted, and members had apparently little inclination to delay tlio progress of legislation by inquiring minutely into tho proposals' contained in .tlio Bills that wore submitted 'to them for consideration. Tlio parliamentary records do not show that there was any discussion whatever on the point of tho penalties prescribed for a breach of the provision to prohibit strikes and lockouts. Wo are fully prepared to believo that it was never realised, when tho provision in-quest-ion was inserted in the Bill, that its effect would bo to render strikers liable to imprisonment in default of their payment of the penalties imposed upon them by the Court. Tho terms of tlio clause, indeed, and those of the original Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act forbid tho suggestion that it was 'deliberately intended that the power to imprison should Tie the ultimate weapon in the hands of the Crown for the purpose of upholding the authority of tlio Court. But wo are unable to hold that the accident that it has been discovered that a more drastic form of punishment may bo exercised against, strikers than was contemplated by Parliament- renders, it impolitic that tho Crown should go tho length, if necessary, of exercising the full extent; of the power reposed in it. For it must be recognised that the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act would liavo proved .ineffective to punish most of tho strikers in Canterbury if it had not been for the fact that tho Crown was enabled to invoke in its assistance the authority of another enactment and of tho Supreme Court code. Tho extraneous support which, as has been proved, may bo afforded to tho Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act has had tho effect of buttressing that measure in a way that is as satisfactory as, probably, it was unexpected. Hut for the discovery that imprisonment may follow non-payment of a penalty imposed by the Court, the Act would plainly have been inequitable in its operation. The employer who should bo fined by the Court would in all cases have the penalty exacted from him, by seizure of his assets if not otherwise, wliilo tho employee, if not possessed of seizablo goods, would have been a-blo to snap his fingers at the Court and evade payment of tlio fino he had incurred. It will henceforward, however, be realised that 110 distinction is made by the law between persons. The employco and the employer are alike liable to be brought effectually to book for an offence against the Act. Now that the public realises that this is so, it may fairly be said that' a previously unrevoaled strength in tho law has been brought to light in tho recent crisis. It would not have been a pleasant tiling from any point of view if the imprisonment of any of the strikers had been forced on the Government. But there should bo 110 sympathy with any body of men who fly -directly in the faco of the law. Nor can al, J r sound reason bo advanced why an offence against the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act should not, in the final resort, if the penalty is not- otherwise satisfied, bo visited by imprisonment. Tlio Crown Prosecutor pointed out, when the cases against tho strikers were beforo the Supremo Court last week, that, where convictions are obtained and penalties recorded under tho Factories Act or tho Shops and Offices Act imprisonment follows as a. matter of course if the fines are not paid. As ho urged, there is no logical reason why a like result should not follow in every case where a fine, inflicted for what tho Legislature has constituted an offence, is not paid. Tlio alternative, it cannot be doubted, iu so far as tho Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act is concerned, would bo the destruction, or at anyra-te the partial destruction, of a measure which is appreciated alike by employers and' employees and under which the conditions of the workers of the colony havo been markedly improved.