MR SEDDON ON OUR LABOR LAWS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 10038, 3 May 1904, Page 1

MR SEDDON ON OUR LABOR LAWS

♦-- — - ■ Iv an article on "New Zealand's Labor Legislation," contributed by Mr Seddon to tlie New York Independent, the Premier writes: — "I should like to emphasise the absolute necessity of continual amendments m industrial legislation. It appears to me tliat there can bo neither fixity nor finality m any law dealing with - a thing' so variable and fluid as production and distribution. A beneficial rule of to-day may be an oppressive yoke of to-morrow, and it is necessary to be over alert to perceive and anticipate the direction m which tho .economic pressure will be directed. At present the most useful effort appears to, be m. the exercise of a just discrimination ' between benupiaut and malignant combinations. "WU.U on© hand we have to nourish thosw organisations of employers and of workers whioh allow industrial subjects to be grasped m a large and comprehensive manner. With the other we have to strike discouraging blows at combinations ■which are little better than bodies of \:oifspirators banded to defeat the law and ■destroy orderly arrangements of society. *Jt may be difficult to discriminate and to divide the just from the unjust, but can at least distinguish between those whoso work makes for peace" and those who openly defy the law, recognising no 'welfare but their own."