The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1912. THE ARBITRATION COURT.

Southland Times, Issue 17225, 21 December 1912, Page 5

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1912. THE ARBITRATION COURT.

Oar contributor “Worker" gleaned some very interesting news from Mr G. J. Anderson, M.P., with respect to modifications that are likely to be made in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act next year. Of course, Mr Anderson is not a Minister, and he is not in a position to make any definite announcement, but when he outlines certain amendments as probable we may take it that the law has been the subject of some party discussion and that Mr Anderson is giving us what he conceives to be the general feeling of the Executive and the party. The principal amendment foreshadowed is that which involves an alteration in the constitution of the Arbitration Court. If the law should be amended on the lines suggested, the permanent representatives of the employers and the workers who sit with the Judge will give place to assessors selected from time to time to represent the trade or calling in which the dispute under consideration arises. Under this scheme the personnel of the Court will vary from time to time; the only permanent member of it will be the presiding judge, and in each dispute that arises his colleagues will be appointed by the parties to the dispute. Thus in the settlement in a dispute in the printing trade the president of the Court will have the assistance of practical printers appointed by the employees and the employers respectively. A Court so constituted would be expert in the real sense of the term, and would have a local knowledge which would be of material assistance in arriving at workable agreements. Of course, if the Arbi-

tration Court were modified in this way there would really be no need for Conciliation Councils, and the question whether the abolition of the councils would not be a serious loss to the cause of industrial pence would have to be very carefully considered. U is not necessary to discuss the proposal at length at this juncture. When wc have an official statement of the Government's proposals it will be time enough to discuss it. In the meantime, however, it may be said that the ideas mooted by Mr Anderson

are not unattractive, and it may be added that it is particularly gratifying to learn from the opinions published in this paper with respect, to the proposals that the Arbitration Court is in favour both with employers and with workers. There was a time when representatives of labour were disposed to express their opinions of the Arbitration Court in terms of thinly veiled contempt. That was the time when the Court found it necessary to refuse a number of applications for increased wages. Now the workers have realised on reflection that in the natural order of things the Court cannot go on raising wages at every application for all time, and it is recognised that the Court is discharging its duty fairly and that its work is of the greatest benefit to the workers of the Dominion.