THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1913. THE ARBITRATION SYSTEM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15937, 3 December 1913, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1913. THE ARBITRATION SYSTEM.

The present juncture hardly seems to us to bo one that admit 6 of a sufficiently dispassionate consideration of the merits and demerits of the industrial arbitration system, but correspondence which has been addressed to us compels the bestowal of some attention upon the matter. There is nothing new in attacks upon the Arbitration Court and upon its constitution. It has survived many of them. And the declaration that the Court has lost the confidence of the workers and that they regard it with suspicion and distrust possesses no novelty. Those who make such a statement and attempt to justify it in .a vein that is sufficiently offensive in its unwarranted suggestion of personal bias on the part of the judge who presides over the Court have their own purpose to serve at a time like this. The declaration is, however, one that is calculated to convey an impression that may generally be said to be quite erroneous. It is worth while noting that even while the present strike has been in progress the Court has been sitting in this district and discharging in the 1 ordinary way the important functions with which it is entrusted as an intermediary between employer and employee in a number of industries. The Court, it seems, still finds work to do, and it would be a rather singular thing if, as is alleged, it had lost the confidence of the workers, that an overwhelming majority of the unionists of the dominion should still belong, as Tecent returns have proved, to organisations which are registered under tho Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. Cancellation of registration and withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the Court have become a process so easy that, in view of these Teturns, it can only be concluded that the majority of the unions are fairly well content to remain where they are, a-nd that they recognise that the arbitration system has advantages which they would be foolish and unreasonable to despise. Some few unions, it is true, have come to the conclusion that they can do betteT for themselves by dispensing with the services of the Arbitration Court. They have preferred round-the-table conferences with the employers as a means of adjusting matters that have been in dispute. And as the employers, have, for the sake of industrial peace, generally shown some readiness to make minor concessions in such circumstances, the change may have proved agreeable to those who consider they' have profited by it. But it is clear that when, as must inevitably happen in the long run, a deadlock is reached, arbitration in some shape or form is the only expedient that offers tho community reasonable safeguards and a prospect that every case in dispute will be considered upon its merits. Arbitration is not intended to give satisfaction to everybody—though if all workers and employers were perfectly reasonable it might conceivably do this— but it offers a better prospect of evenhanded justico than any other method of adjusting industrial differences does, and the'workers in New Zealand have abundant reason to admit that it has brought them material advantages. Recent occurrences, so far from weakening the arbitration system in this country, may be considered to have .strengthened it. The object-lesson of these days of industrial tension is not being lost upon the community of which the workers are a part. The principle of compulsory arbitration may not seem, it is true, always to operate perfectly in practice, but it can only be reiterated that it provides the best discoverable machinery for the settlement of disputes, and that it is infinitely preferable to recourse to extreme measures which spell loss to both sides and bring distress upon the public.

The letter which we publish this morning from "Employer" is of interest in the suggestions it offers for improving the constitution o£ the Arbitration Court. These ai'e suggestions which may be considered at greater length and in fuller detail wheiv the present struggle has dragged on to its inevitable end. We have always maintained that it must be a great advantage to the Court to have a president whose position is associated with the dignity attaching to tliat of a judge; and we see no reason to alter that opinion with which our correspondent is in agreement. We have no groat faith in the suggestion that a layman, however great his industrial experience, could discharge the important duties of the- president of the Court with a greater measure of success than a judge of the Suprome Court who lias been highly qualified by the training of a lifetime to fill such an office. The adoption of the suggestion that the president should be assisted by two bona fide assessors from each side engaged in the particular trade concerned in every dispute would obviate the Tisk that, from its lack of technical knowledge, the Court may mako awards that cannot be observed in their entirety. But it would mako the composition of the Arbitration Court correspond very closely with that of the Conciliation Councils, and in that respect would involve, to some extent, a duplication of the industrial tribunals. The argument that the Court might usefully dispense with some of the formalities in the way of strict adherence to the lules of legal procedure and so forth is much more convincing. While the status of the president should always furnish a sufficient safeguard for

the dignity of the Court, it is reasonable to suppose that its functions might be discharged quite as efficiently if there -was a less rigid and pernickety insistence upon the observance of legal formula. The point made by our correspondent, that an anomaly is presented in the holding by a member of the Court of a twofold position in which he may be called upon to prepare-for one of the parties to a dispute the case which he will have subsequently to consider in a judicial capacity, seems to us to be unanswerable. There is certainly no need to regard the Arbitration Court in either its present constitution ot in its methods of procedure as so perfect an instrument that it is incapable of improvement. But'the system of industrial arbitration has stood the test of a score of years so well that it may be said to have very distinctly justified itself.