Compulsory Arbitration.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19149, 4 November 1927, Page 10

Compulsory Arbitration.

We are sure that a very large number/ of our readers—we feel tempted to say all who have seriously studied the question and have no bias—found themselves in complete agreement with the article in yesterday's Press by Professor Tocker. In the region of fact the article was of course incontrovertible. Compulsory arbitration was introduced to seoure industrial peace, and it neither does nor can secure it. Professor Tocker is not quite sure that it "appreciably "diminishes" industrial strife, since nearly all the industrial stoppages that take place are caused by a very small group of wage-camel's who pay very little respect, to the Arbitration. Court. In any pase there is ' the fact which has been so often pointed out in The Press, more than once by Professor Tocker himself, that the great majority of wage-earners are completely outside the Court's jurisdiction. It would, however, still be wise to retain compulsory arbitration if it were achieving some other object as important asthat which it was initiated to secure. But instead of doing that compulsory arbitration brings about a condition of affairs which makes real harmony in impossible. It gives us not agreements but awards, which is in itself a fundamental failure, since the awards are legal judgments imposed on the disputants from the outside, and very often accepted with resentment. But there is the further fact that these awards are economically artificial. The Court fixes hours, wages, and working conditions on the basis of the cost of living, that is to say on a false and insecure basis, since wages, whatever the Court says, must be paid out of production. Indeed the Court has been doing this for so long a time that the average wage-earner has almost lost sight of the fact that' he cannot get more in the end than he makes, and never even asks himself why it is that in those countries in which the State interferes least with wage* (the United States and-Canada,

for example) real wages are higher than in New Zealand. But after all it is not the labour unions which now keep the Court in existence. It is retained primarily because the public cannot quite free themselves of the superstition that it is an essential part of our industrial organisation. The most valuable feature *>f Professor Tocker's article is that he not only points out the failures of compulsory arbitration, but has the courage to say, and the logical ruthlessness to show, that the system should not be revised but abolished. " There is no really necessary service "performed by the Court," he says, "that could not be discharged equally " well by other organisations. There " is much that it does which would be "better left undone. Industry would "be more self-reliant, vital, and pro"gressive, trade unionism would be "healthier, sounder, and saner if real " conciliation and collective bargaining " bringing mutual understanding be- " tween the parties were to replace the " State tribunal which now makes their " differences matter for litigation." That is a bold conclusion, but the only possible one when we face all the facts frankly and fearlessly. And if wc are not prepared to do that we have no to complain of the consequences of not doing it, whether we employ or are employed, and earn our living in sheltered or in unsheltered industries.