The Waikato Argus [PUBLISHED DAILY.] A Guaranteed Circulation of Over 7500 Weekly. SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1906.

Waikato Argus, Volume XX, Issue 3092, 27 January 1906, Page 2

The Waikato Argus [PUBLISHED DAILY.] A Guaranteed Circulation of Over 7500 Weekly. SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1906.

Mu SEDDON, speaking at a banquet last night, expressed regret that the Labour Parliament which he suggested had fallen through. For our part we were unable to imagine what good such an assemblage could do. They could only have discussed generalities and talked platitudes. He explains the idea of the Government to have been to bring employers and employees and the representatives of farmers and industrial unions together. There could only have been one result as regards the industrial and farmers’ unions—the conclusion that their interests arc diametrically opposed. The farmers to a man favour free trade, in order that they may bo able to purchase their requirements which they do not produce themselves at the lowest possible rate. The Trades Unionists, on the other hand, favour high protection in order that they may earn high wages by working few hours, and at the same time purchase the farmer’s produce at the value to export. The Courts of Arbitration exist for the purpose of settling the proportion of the gross earnings of an industry which shall go to the workmen and which to the employer. These Courts take as the basis of their calculation the value of the goods turned out with the customs duties added. All the palaver of a Labour Parliament would not alter the position one jot. If some means could be devised by this Parliament by which the conditions laid down by the Arbitration Courts could be made equally enforceable against the employed as against the employer, there would be some reason for its existence, The law can compel a man to pay given wages for a given number of hours’ work or shut down his business, but there is no legal process by which a man can bo compelled to work at the rate fixed. The workmen have simply to absent themselves from the workshops, and for all practical purposes the same result is brought about as by an organised strike, the ruling of the Arbitration Court notwithstanding. This was exactly what happened with the Newcastle coal miners about a year back, where practically the same arbitration law is in force as in this colony.