The Marine Engineers.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4773, 13 October 1893, Page 2

The Marine Engineers.

It is to be hoped that the differences between the Australasian Institute of' Marine Engineers and the steamship owners will be settled without an outbreak of industrial war, a conflict which would, perhaps, extend to the shores of this country. Whatever the issue may be it iB impossible to avoid the conclusion that the owners did not approach the Bubject in as conciliatory a spirit as they should have done. They submitted a series of proposals conceived very much more in their own interest than in that of the engineers, as it included enormous reductions in pay, "freedom of contract" that peb fetish of overbearing employers, and a promise that the number of engineers and greasers carried was to be regulated absolutely by the owners. On a conference being asked for, they declined to discuss any other question until that of wages was settled. This arbitrary course was: very properly resisted ; and they finally proposed a reductipn of 15 per cent, with a twelve months' agreement, while the engineers were willing to .concede no more than alO per cent reduction. So the matter stands at present, and a general vote of the engineers is being taken to decide as to the future action of the Society. The proposals of the engineers appear to have been more moderate than those of the owners, though at first the employees were nob disposed to make sufficient concessions in the matter of reductions of pay. Seven and a half per cent was all that they offered, . while the employers demanded twenty to forty per cent. The latter seems far too great, but the former is probably too little. One of the best features of the employees' proposals wsb the request for a Board of Arbitration, which was one of the points which the owners refused to consider until the question of wages had been settled.. Ab the latter question is the one which, of all others, should be considered by a Board of Arbitration, it is not very becoming for the employers to wish to have it excluded, for that is, practically; what their position amounts to. The state of affairs shows, as does every industrial conflict of the present day, the need for some restraining power to prevent either employees or employees from entering on a struggle which may have disastrous effects reaching far beyond -the original sphere of strife: in short, what is needed is a court of arbitration, potent to enforce its decrees.