“A FIGHTING ATTITUDE.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19696, 25 January 1926, Page 8

“A FIGHTING ATTITUDE.”

The preliminary indications suggest that the business of the election of the workers' representative on the Court of Arbitration is going to be rather interesting. When a rift occurs within the Labour lute the resultant discord tends to be of an entertaining order. An illustration in point is provided through the circumstance that the Executive of the Trades and Labour Council's Federation looks coldly on the claims to reappointment of Mr Hiram Hunter, who has represented the workers on the Arbitration Court for the past three years. It has circularised the affiliated unions, inviting thera to support the candidate for the position nominated by the Wellington Trades Council. This candidate is Mr A. L. Monteith, who represented

Wellington East in the last ParEameni but suffered defeat at the elections in November. Mr Hunter is, however, nob disposed to suffer meekly the injustice which, he considers, is being thrust upon him. He, too, has circularised tin, unions, and with no lack of plains speaking. Apparency his reappointment is being opposed becacee of the view entertained in soma quarters that as workers' representative 'he did not sufficiently dominate the Arbitration Court. What the workers' representative can do when he is in a minority save dissent from the Court's decisions is not very clear, but apparently there are those who have very high ideals in respect of his obligations to assert himself. Evidently Mr Hunter's dissent was not expressed with that degree of freedom and disrespect for the Court which, would have satisfied such a standard of expectation. Presumably he did not roar loudly enough when he did not get his own way, and he neglected opportunities for the creation of "scenes" and for unstinted abase of the "college-trained judge'' who presides over the Court and of his brother assessor. At all events that is the standard by which Mr Hunter appears to think he is being judged by those who oppose him, and his discernment should not be at fault in such a matter. Possibly that is why in his circular to the unions, with which the appointment rests,. he has not been at all reluctant to demonstrate that in a warfare of words he is very well able to hold his own. He is witheringly scornful at Mr Monteith's expense for addressing himself to the unions with a boast of his fighting ability and an assurance that the best method of defence is attack. "In my experience," says Mr Hunter, "the man who talks loudest about fight is usually the first to put his running boots on." He puts the pertinent, if somewhat pathetic and ungra'mmatical question, "Who is the workers' representative to attack, anyhow?" He offers the reflection that the Judge is quite capable of being "full of fight, too," and he recalls an occasion upon which Mr Monteitb. conducted a dispute in th« Arbitration Court, and so exasperated the Judge that bis Honor told him, in effect, that he did not want to listen to his political propaganda, to reserve it for the soapbox, and to confine himself to points relevant to the dispute. That, it may be surmised, was one of the occasions when the Judge showed his "dasa sympathies with rich companies and employers," of which the Christcburcri Moulders' Union has thought fit to accuse him. A fighting attitude is very appropriate, Mr Hunter argues, for a Jack Dempsey in a roped arena, but he doubts the efik"°E.cy of it in the deliberating room. : 'AII the workers would receive if their representative adopted those tactics wotrid be bis protest on each occasion." Touching satirically upon Mr Monteith's manner of interpreting the Arbitration law, Mr Hunter employs a pleasant personal touch when he observes; "You have bis word for it that he is 'noted for his grasp of industrial legislation' (sweet modest little chap and our legal lominaries who have reached the Supreme Court Bench know nothing. In fact, they are all oat of step but or Jock.' * All things considered the unions should find diverting reading, not it is to ba hoped, lacking in instruction for their guidance, in the literature addressed to them from one side or the other in reference to the appointment of which, they hav* the making.