THE ARBITRATION COURT.

Observer, Volume XXVII, Issue 35, 18 May 1907, Page 2

THE ARBITRATION COURT.

Arthur Rosser and Gruel for the Employers.

IF Mr Arthur Rosser had not seized upon the miners' award ac an opportunity for self-ad-vertisement, and had refrained from taking the puoiic too fully into his confidence concerning the inner working of the Arbitration Court, the public mind would probably have continued to regard that tribunal as an impartial arbiter between the employer and the employed. But Mr Rosser, yielding alike to the impulses of vanity and the seductive blandishments of the "Herald" interviewer, has thrown a destructive missile at that delusion, even if he has not succeeded in shattering it altogether. "We fear, thanks to Mr Rosser's indiscreet loquacity, coupled with the Totest of Mr Samuel Brown, employers' assessor, that the delusion is hopelessly shattered.

Reminded of Mr Brown's dissent from the finding of the Court, Mr Rosser said it did not surprise him in the least. The employers' representa-

tive had had his own way so long that it was only natural that he was not satisfied with the turn things had taken. Ahem ! And so there has been a change, has there ? Is this a change of policy, or only of Judge, or is it both ? Mr Rosser arrears to know. In fact, ho iB, prepared, in his simplicity, to tell us. Throuehout the colony, it is recognised that Mr Justice Chapman is one of the soundest and most impartial jurists that we possess. Whether he yielded to the claims of the unionists or whether he did not, it is admitted that he was impartial and independent. The fact that he has stepped up higher on the Supreme Court bench, with the concurrence of the Government, is the best evidence of this fact.

Now, however, things have taken a turn. Mr Rosser says they nave, and being one of the paid advocates of trades unionism, and baskinp: in the confidence of the Government, he ought to know. Listen to Arthur Rosser :— " Award after award has been given, in whicn the workers have not gained anything, In some cases we have not failed to express our disappointment, but we have always been advised by the Employers' Federation to take our gruel patiently, and not to rashly imperil the existence of the -.Arbitration Act. This we have always done, and the advice was good, and was accepted in good faith. iNow we can only return the advice so freely given

Evidently, Mr Arthur Rosser, in his verdant simplicity and his overflow of vanity. does not appreciate the full significance of this impudent sentiment. Things have taken a turn, and his advice to the employers is to take their gruel patiently. This can only mean one thing. Are we to understand that the new Judge of the Arbitration Court has been appointed to ladle out gruel to the employers ? Mr Arthur Rosser practically says so. Unquestionably, if we are to believe him, there has been a change in the Arbitration Court, and the result will be gruel for the employers, which they are advised to take patiently.

For the most part, the Arbitration Court has meant gruel for the employers all along. Now there is to be more gruel. This would not be so bad so long as Mr Rosser and others who are in the know studied the nuality of discretion, and left the situation open to some occasional chance of uncertainty, but Mr Eosser was so eager to vociferate the good news that he has blurted it out to employer and employed alike. The late Mr Seddon used to say that labour demands had rcone far enough., and that the time was approaching when the Arbitration Court must stop. But, with the ' ' turn things have taken," there is no alternative to the squeezing policy of " round again," and it goes without saying that employers in every trade, wearied though they are with the perennially increasing exactions of the Arbitration Court, will be cited in turn to swallow their dose of Sim gruel. Swallow it natiently ? Of course they will. " Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die."

It is interesting to observe that the most recent doubt upon the impartiality of the Court, like all the other doubts or accusations, has come from a trades unionist source. Hitherto, these reflections have been made in anger. This one has been perpetrated in triumphant "lee. Nevertheless, the effect is the same in either case. la the interests of justice, and for the sake of the purity of our judicial system ■, we trust that there is no justification for Mr Rosser's statement that things in the Arbitration Court have taken a turn, or that the employers are going to get their gruel under the Sim regime, bat if his indiscreet disclosure to the press is warranted by the actual situation, then we have no hesitation in saying that nublic confidence in the Arbitration Court will be irretrievably shattered and the very existence of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act imperilled.