THE ARBITRATION SYSTEM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19404, 13 February 1925, Page 5

THE ARBITRATION SYSTEM.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— lt is the duty and privilege of some to try to make believe that everything in our dominion garden is lovely and prosperous, but the unrest around us and the trend of population to town in an essentially agricultural country are against the interests of the whole community. It appears to many that the awards of our Arbitration Court are the primary cause of this exodus from country to town. There is no doubt that instead of preventing strikes, which this court was instituted to do, it has promoted thorn, and its awards have given a setback to many primary as well as secondary' industries and has reduced the price of expensive machinery to that of old iron. It has closed hundreds of creameries and dairy factories

throughout the country and thrown the work of separation upon the already overworked dairymen and women, to the detriment, it now appears, of the quality of our butter, as separation at a creamery is less harmful. It is stated that our own local factory was compelled to close down, and at immense loss to shareholders, dispose of some 50 creameries and factories scattered throughout North and South Otago, thus depriving about 100 men of what they had begun to regard as permanent and congenial occupation; and if this has occurred in one province, one can form an estimate of the upheaval and loss throughout the dominion. This is the result in one industry only, but I can point to thousands of tons of valuable machinery brought to a standstill through inability to keep it in motion at a profit to the employer or the dominion, due entirely to the excessive cost of production and the pin-pricks of the Arbitration Court.

Moreover, the court is acknowledged to be the chief cause of the increased cost of living throughout the dominion, while it has consistently ignored the effect of its awards upon tno many with fixed incomes and primary producers, whoso wage is fixed by the inexorable laws of supply and demand. The Arbitration Court has been declared on authority in Australia to bo one-sided and inequitable, and it is doubly so here, inasmuch as its awards aro legion and arc made to be flouted and disregarded by employers and to bo enforced only upon the unfortunate employers, under the whip of an army of inspectors. Surely, Sir, it is lime to abolish an Act .which presses so inequitably upon the largo majority of rotors throughout the dominion.—l am, etc., M. AND F.