“STRATFORD EVENING POST” THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1928. THE ARBITRATION COURT.

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 24, 6 September 1928, Page 4

“STRATFORD EVENING POST” THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1928. THE ARBITRATION COURT.

PROBABLY public opinion will not find much fault with the Prime Minister’s decision to call another Industrial Conference, although it is a pity that the points, upon which an agreement was reached at the last conference are pot being dealt with this sessicti. Representatives o$ employers and workers (agreed upon certain tilings regarding the Work-* ers’ Compensation Act, and legislation upon the lines of such agreement could have been laid before Parliament. No actual agreement was reached in connection with the amendment to the arbitration system and the task before the Government in tlii s matter is thereby rendered more difficult. The Government under the circumstances was faced with either having to assume the whole responsibility for any amendment,, or taking the course of calling another conference. The latter was decided upon /as being the more satisfactory. However at the conference there was very little difference between the opposing points of view on this question, and a !s Mr T, Blood, worth one of the Labour delegates said, “it was hard at times to see exactly where the difference lay.” Perhaps the differences were that the employers’ delegates questioned the right of a Sffite institution to interefere with private business, except in certain matters while tlm Labour men possibly were not prepared to abandon the right of weak unions to appeal to the State to lay down the terms and of employment. The fact that the arbitration Court been converted from an institution of true Arbitration, functioning when a real dispute arises, into one that operates automatically whether there is an industrial difference of opinion or not is an weakness of oun industrial system. The making of /awards by the Court without considering all of the attend-ant-circumstances is also another weakness which has brought about the well merited criticism of which so* much has been heard lately of the court working in conjunction ■ with the tariffs playing a part in bringing about a state of affairs which is uneconomic. The solution of the problem will not he easy hut much will bo accomplished if the conference will aim at a. modification of the system ruder which the Court carries out the functions of a wages Baird, instead of existing as a true Court of Arbitration making itself felt only ■when a strike or lock out appears inevitable.