ATTACK ON JUDICIARY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20222, 7 October 1927, Page 9

ATTACK ON JUDICIARY

ROYAL COMMISSION’S FINC":^ THE POLITTOAL INFLUENCE. (Frets Association—By Telegraph—Oopyrlgit.) SYDNEY, October 5. The report of the Royal Commission, which inquired into Mr A. B. Piddington’s (Industrial Commissioner) judgments, found that Mr Piddington was in no way influenced by the Government or by political considerations in his declarations of the basic wage. The report adds: “There is nothing in the Herald article, or the statements of Mr Allen, of the Graziers’ Association, that could be taken by any reasonableminded man to reflect upon the persmal rectitude of Mr Piddington and full consideration of them has satisfied the commission beyond all reasonable doubt that Mr Piddington was not only an able, but an upright, judge when discharging his judicial duties, and an able, upright officer of the Crown when discharging his duties of a legislative or administrative character.” The report concluded that nothing was elicited in the course of the inquiry which could in any sense be taken as a reflection upon his integrity. A MINORITY REPORT. DETERMINING OF LIVING WAGE SYDNEY, October 6. The chairman of the Piddington Commission (Mr Justice Edmunds), in a minority report, says that the commission was in full accord regarding the integrity of Mr Piddington, but he dissented from his brother commissioners regarding the interpretation of certain points of the 1927 Act. The report contains a statement, from which Mr Justice Edmunds dissented, that in determining the living wage at £4 5s the Industrial Commission acted upon a wrong principle, and exceeded the powers conferred unon it by the amending legislation of 1927. The statement in the Sydney Morning Herald ■ referred to in the message were contained in an article written by a correspondent and in a leading article on the subject in the same paper. In dealing with industrial awards the correspondent said; “The Government, by hook or by crook, managed to maintain its bare majority, and it is to this Government that the Industrial Commissioner owes his appointment and acknowledges his duty. If this be true it follows that the administration of our industrial system is dictated, not by justice, as is the promised aim of other tribunals, but by political influence.” The leading article said, inter alia: “ The rural workers are not blind. They know the stern reality behind the farmers’ protests against the award. The Industrial Commissioner has said that he is not so much a judge as the voice of a parliamentary majority, and that his procedure in fixing the rural basic wage was to make an award first and hear the evidence after.”