The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1932. THE ARBITRATION COURT

Southland Times, Issue 21649, 10 March 1932, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1932. THE ARBITRATION COURT

The Government should heed the warnings it is receiving, and provide means for the reconstruction of its Bill dealing with the Arbitration Court system. Objections by the trades union may be regarded as expressions of opposition from a section of the community naturally antagonistic to any move likely to prejudice the present scale of money wages; but it should be noticed that from the employers’ side similar criticism is coining, and more than one newspaper is directing attention to the dangerous course thfc Government proposes to take. The Canterbury Builders’ Association has declared that it is against any changes which will mean the virtual elimination of the Court. Mr R. C. Jamieson, the president of the association, says that employers generally do not wish to depart from' the present system of arbitration, and Mr W. H. Winsor adds that some final tribunal of arbitration —the Court —must be maintained to put an end to interminable “conciliation.” The dangers of “voluntary arbitration” have been revealed, and the Government must see that any steps it takes to enforce this “optional” method will put the Court out of action. Mr Rowley, speaking with the authority of a man who has served the State in the Department of Labour, declares that: “Compulsory conciliation and optional arbitration” must result in a reversion to the old barbarous system of strikes and lockouts and that these weapons would be most readily seized by those engaged in the handling of exports. We would thus witness a return to the age of force instead of reason.

In Mr Rowley’s opinion the real trouble has been in restricting the Court’s authority to the fixing of wages “according to an artificial cost of living standard,” instead of taking the economic situation as the principal factor. When the legislature gave the Court power to take the economic situation into account, the rates set out in awards were reduced by 10 per cent. Up to that time the Court was unable to take cognizance of the general economic situation. To-day it is realized that the economic situation demands alterations to awards, but it is also clear that employers and employees in general are sternly opposed to a plan which will jettison the Court altogether. The proposal made by Mr Rowley that the bench of the Court should include a* representative of the people- charged with the duty of keeping the Court in touch with trade conditions is an old one, but it was never adopted because “trade conditions” in a period of buoyancy were considered to be of minor importance. Now the significance of “trade conditions” is realized, and the plain duty of the legislature is to see that the Court, whether it continues under an “optional” or “compulsory” system is instructed to take notice of the economic situation when it is making awards. There is, of course, no occasion to trouble the Court if the parties are agreed at the Conciliation Council, and to that tribunal they now go as part of the ordinary process in connection with the settlement of disputes. It is only in making reference to the Court “optional” that the Government is changing the method, but in doing that it is opening the door for the 'killing of the Court and its blunder is the more reprehensible when an alteration in the basis of awards will achieve practically all that is needed —that change and a determination that unions, whether within or outside of the scope of the Court’s authority, cannot misuse their power and cripple industry by the encouragement or bland disdain of harassing or dishonest practices.