The Sun TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1920. SUCCESS OF THE BIG STICK.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2018, 3 August 1920, Page 6

The Sun TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1920. SUCCESS OF THE BIG STICK.

It is unfortunate but true that the Arbitration Court as an institution is falling deeper into disrepute. Organised Labour has found a more effective means of getting what it wants. It strikes first and talks of conciliation afterward. The point was raised in Wellington yesterday by a well-known trade union secretary who was pleading the ease of the Cooks' and Stewards' Union, Special terms for Sunday work were asked, and the union's representative protested at the employers having refused this concession to an organisation which used constitutional methods while they had granted it to a body which had ignored the Court. That such can happen, and has happened in case after case has undermined the workers' confidence in the Court and increased the mana of the Federation of Labour. It is not altogether the fault of the tribunal itself. When it was established it was eminently necessary, and by degrees it improved industrial conditions out of all knowledge. But the time came when it could not fairly give the workers alt they sought. It became less generous when wages advanced to such a level that an advance would have represented an injustice to and hardship on capital. The Court recognised that certain industries could afford to pay a certain rate of wage and no more without having to risk collapse: That was one of its functions, and it was a function which the unions, disappointed in thenappeals to the Court, either denied or failed to understand. Their advances rejected, they turned elsewhere for another champion and discovered it in the direct actionists. Direct action involved them more often than not in substantial losses for the time being, but its ultimate results were practically assured. A strike would fail, but, paradoxically enough, the moral effect of such failure was to enhance the chances of success on a future occasion when tools were downed once more. Thus was evolved the big stick policy by which the direct actionists captured the Labour machine and discredited both the Arbitration Court and the law-abiding trade unions' methods of settling disputes. Nowadays, it has become a common thing for employers as well as employees to arrange to settle their differences without any reference to the Court. Hound-the-table conferences are growing steadily in favour, especially in the key industries. It is not that the employers as a. body are gravely dissatisfied with the Court. But the modern system of amending awards makes as a rule for prompter settlement: employers yield more readily to demands since they know they can pass these on lo a longsuffering and impotent public. When a trade is bled by the workers, it in turn bleeds the community which, though quite unrepresented in the dispute, has no choice but to pay up and look pleasant. That is the worst feature of the new development in industrial negotiation; it amounts to another instance of taxation without representation. Increased working expenses are simply passed along to the shoulders of a third party which has been allowed no voice in the argument. Obviously, there can be no hope of reducing the cost of living while such a cold-blooded system of making industrial agreements at the expense of the public continues without restraint.

SLIM-LOOKING PROPOSALS. Cr Flcsher's outline of the work of the Canterbury Hall Sub-Com-mittee of the City Council is not to be passed over carelessly. It proposes a three-storied building which will include si council chamber, administrative ollices, Mayor's room, snd makes provision for the erection of. a large hall which would hold 2000 people, and in which the new organ, when acquired, could be placed. It is estimated that the work will not cost more than £IOO,OOO. On paper, the proposals look like a slim attempt on the part of somebody to kill the Town Hall idea. Cr Fleslier's antagonism to the erection of «

Town Hall on the nursing home site north of Victoria Square is well known. He has always taken an essentially narrow view on that subject, and it is because of his attitude that many people will regard the city hall scheme with suspicion. Citizens have expressed themselves as wholly opposed to the utilisation of the Manchester Street property as the basis of a Town Hall. They voted for the purchase of that property on the understanding that any buildings erected thereon would be devoted to municipal offices. That understanding must be observed. Cr Flesher's explanation and assurance which were given to a Sun representative to-day are not completely convincing. The truth is that if a commodious city hall is erected on the Manchester Street site, it will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to carry a poll for the purchase of the real Town Hall site beyond Victoria Street bridge. Indeed one might go so far "as to say that, with a hall available accommodating such "a large number of people as 2000, a Town Hall would be superfluous. If the citizens interested are wide awake to the possibilities of the situation they will refuse to sanction any proposal which will endanger in any way the provision of the stately edifice which the city needs, and, we believe, is prepared to authorise, More office room is required for the municipality's employees, but it must not be so expensive as to cripple the scheme for a Town Hall We can possess both if our councillors go the right way about it.