LABOUR DEPUTES AND THEIR SETTLEMENT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14220, 18 February 1914, Page 3

LABOUR DEPUTES AND THEIR SETTLEMENT.

SPEECH BY THE HON. W. A. •

HOLMAN.

(Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, February 16. lion. W. A. Holman, Premier of New South Wales, was accorded a civic reception this morning, and was formally welcomed by the. Mayor and Hon. Rhodes. s Later Mr Holman was the guest of honour at the New Zealand Club .luncheon, and spoße on “The Problem of Labour Disputes and their Settlement” '■Throughout the globe during the last ten years,” he said, “there has been a steady increase in the prices of the necessaries of life. That had been bitterly felt oy the working classes, and there had been steadily rising a wave of discontent amongst them. • There had in consequence been a decided decrease in the purchasing power of money, and the earners of wages which formed a subsistence level say ten years ago, found themselves to-day in a position of great distress. As a result, they had seen the remarkable phenomenon of apparently an absolute wave of discontent spreading through the labour communities of the whole world. He contended that there was only one basis of settlement, namely, a frank recognition of this fact, and for the employers to pay higher wages. Assuming there was need for more or less continuous readjustment of the wages scale, by which method was that readjustment to be made? It appeared to him no method had been devised better than that of the arbitration now in force in New Zealand and Australia, and he put that proposition to them more readily because there were no doubt men- in New Zealand who were just recovering from the violent shock to their faith in the efficacy of arbitration, and because at this moment in New South Wales there was a violent struggle going on which no doubt would be quoted as an illustration of the utter failure of the arbitration system there. He believed that in spite of these occasional upheavals in Australia and New Zealand, faith in arbitration was really on the increase. If they took the international situation to-day and compared it with that of a century ago, ho supposed no calm thinker would deny that #1 the whole the forces that make for the preservation of peace ’amongst the nations are enormously growing in volume and strength. During the last few years things had happened which fifty or a hundred years ago would have brought about a cataclysm. Yet peace had been preserved. The same applied to the industiial situation which twenty years ago would have produced, some great industrial upheaval, now passed by without a great struggle, which, under a cruder state of things, would have occurred throughout Australia. There had been increasing confidence in arbitration methods. Arbitration was the method by winch grievances should he ventilated considered, and redressed, and it was the s p Tia! glory of New Zealand to have conn United that legislation which was to-dav hunmnityadvancement, of

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