“DOOMED TO FAILURE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 727, 29 July 1929, Page 9

“DOOMED TO FAILURE”

FEDERAL ARBITRATION COURT UNSATISFACTORY

BUSINESS MAN’S OPINION

“it looks as though the Federal Arbitration Court is bound to go. That is a good thing, for it has been an absolute failure. 1 have been in touch with it since its inception, so I have been able to study its methods and effect.” The speaker was Mr. S. Perry, of the Perry Engineering Company, South Australia, who is a passenger on the R.M.M.S. Aorangi, bound for Canada, where he will combine a health visit with an intensive study of Canadian and American industrial systems, arbitration laws, and labour problems generally. One of South Australia’s leading business men, he is chairman of the Board of Industry, and associated with the Board of Trade. Discussing the present move to abolish the Federal Arbitration Court, he said that the whole organisation was very unsatisfactory, while the overlapping of Federal and State awards was extremely unpleasant. The Federal Court tended to make a flat rate throughout the Commonwealth, but this in practice was unfair, as conditions in the individual States varied considerably. “South Australia, for instance, has no coal and no water for hydroelectric purposes. These are great handicaps, and require special consideration,” .lie said. Unemployment, he continued, was very bad. No solution seemed to be forthcoming unless Australia went in for extensive borrowing, and this was hardly desirable, as taxation was extremely heavy. At one time, South Australia had the lowest taxes in the Commonwealth. Today, the State’s taxation bill was the highest. “Secondary industry must be made to absorb more labour,” he remarked. “We are certainly passing through a bad time, and the outlook is a difficult one, but. I feel that good prospects lie ahead if the situation is handled in the right way.”