I.—9b.

E. J. CAKEY.^

ing adult suffrage, the majority will and mind of the public is the deciding factor. It is suggested that that remedy will be effected by the mere change of the personnel of the Court—by the substitution of a layman for a Judge as the President of the Court. Such a change offers no guarantee that the faults of past administration will not be repeated. All that can be said in its favour is that the probability is that a layman will be less shackled by Court etiquette and precedent, and be more in touch with the mind of the people and the spirit of the times. The guarantee should be in the Arbitration Act itself. In past years the grounds of criticism of the system have been sought to be removed by amendment of the mere machinery sections of the Act. It is admitted that these machinery amendments have in many instances resulted in the easier and quicker application of the Act in disputed cases; but latterly the grounds of complaint are deeper rooted. They are based on matters of big principle. Proposals not promising : Judging from the Budget proposals the promised Bill does no more than deal with the same old machinery sections of the Act. As outlined the proposals of the Massey Government are not satisfying to labour, in that they will not make for any greater contentment with or confidence in the system; they will not in the end satisfy the public in whose interest the system has been invoked as much as in the purely trades-union interest. Every Australian State, with the one exception, is at present dealing with proposals for the legislative improvement of the system of compulsory arbitration for the settlement of industrial disputes. The legislation under that heading is still experimental, though the beginning was made over fifteen years ago. Mr. Massey's proposals are not likely to result n any great perfection in our Act. What is wanted : So as to remove the most pressing cause of the discontentment here—" the bias of the President of the Court" (and labour makes no charge that it is a conscious bias) — the follow ing suggestions are put forward : The Bill should be so framed as to clearly set out in the preamble of it what the measure is intended to accomplish. It should be stated to be an enactment for the prevention and settlement of all industrial disputes by State interference and compulsory arbitration. Industrial unions and industrial associations should be encouraged, and their formation in unorganized industries expressly facilitated. It should create a Court of Arbitration which should be a standing and continuing committee for the investigation of industrial matters and for advising the Legislature on the means for fully settling all problems of industrial unrest, and which should have power to act of its own motion at the initial stages of all disputes. So that the mind of the Legislature and the will of the people shall always be supreme the Act should lay down the several accepted economic principles, industrial maxims, and regulated procedure to which the actions of the Court of Arbitration shall conform and under which it shall work. The Court and its minor accessory tribunals could be given power to depart from those principles, maxims, and rules of procedure, but the Act should insist that where such departure was made in connection with any dispute or labour-conditions in an industry then the Court should give in minutest detail the reasons necessitating that departure. In all judgments or recommendations made for the settlement of a dispute, whether there has been any departure from the principles, &0., laid down in the Act or not, the Court or othertribunal should be compelled to give detailed reasons for every provision of the judgment or recommendations made, and this in order that the people and the elected representatives shall have opportunity of gauging whether or not the majority mind and will of the people on all the matters in dispute has been truly interpreted by the bodies set up really in effect to do so. Guiding principles: Amongst the principles to which the Court's judgments and awards should in general be compelled to conform are the following: (1) The living-wage; (2) the eighthours day; (3) the weekly half-holiday in six-day industries, and the weekly day of rest in seven-day industries; (4) preference to unionists; (5) equal pay for equal work; (6) trade apprenticeship and the fixed limitation of apprentices and juniors; (7) the common rule ami the award grouping of trades and callings; (8) the abolition of the contract and labour-only system; (9) the compulsory insurance of workers by all employers bound by the Act. Disregard of these principles by the Court is the main source of present trades-union disaffection with the system. Under all existing arbitration laws the success of the system depends to a great extent upon the arbitrator. Australia affords an illustration. At present and since the inception of the Commonwealth Arbitration Act general satisfaction has been given by the Federal Court, consisting of one President, a Judge alone. A change of Presidents and an unlucky appointment might result in the discrediting of the -whole system. For a democracy it should not be that one man shall be the industrial dictator. Rather it should be, as we ask, that the Parliament should lay down a set of guiding principles and rules, within which and in conformity with which the Court shall settle trade disputes. In New Zealand the Court has been given "exclusive jurisdiction " and wonderful powers. It has used those powers at times to frame its judgments in direct conflict with the will of the people as expressed by the Legislature in the Arbitration Act itself. If the system is to continue the powers of the Court must be clearly defined and its judgments made to comply with the intentions of the Act, In the preamble of the Act the encouragement and formation of trades-unions should be put forth as one of the aims of the measure. Industrial unions and associations of employers should be expressly encouraged, because the essence of the system is collective bargaining. The most comprehensive bargain can best be made—even though it is made to the order of the Court—when both participating sides in the dispute are completely organized. No one nowadays questions the oommunity-good of trades-unionism. The fight at one time was for the legal status of trades-unionism. Now it is accepted that employers and employed in an industry shall organize, and when the dispute arises the third great party —the final arbitrator, the public—shall step in and through its chosen authority order on what terms the dispute shall be settled. The sense of the system is that there shall be complete organization in all the separate industries, so that when a dispute arises in one trade all the people in all the other trades and industries —the whole public—shall in a scientific way take a hand in the settlement of that dispute. Preference to unionists is essential in some trades to help on and keep up the trades-union organization of that trade.

7