The Arbitration Act.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19166, 24 November 1927, Page 8

The Arbitration Act.

It seems to be unlikely that the Bill to amend the Arbitration Act will he passed this -year. There is a good deal of legislation to be dealt with in the few days of the session that remain, and the Labour Party has resolved to use every means of opposing the Bill. Nobody need feel very sorry for this, because the original Bill, good enough so far as it went, amounted to very little, and the Bill as amended by the Labour Bills Committee amounts to even less. The fundamental weakness of the existing law was only partly recognised. That weakness is the development of the Court into a wagefixing machine, and the partial recognition of it was in the clause directing the Court to take into account not only what it thinks " a fair standard of liv"ing," but also "the economic and " financial conditions " affecting the industries it regulates, and "trade and "industry generally in New Zealand, " and all other relevant considerations." In actual practice this direction to the Court would make little or no difference to the working of the Act. The clause we have quoted signifies that the Government knows where the fundamental unsoundness of the Act lies but is unwilling to deal with it directly and effectively. Until it is so dealt with statutory wage-fixing, supplementing the protective tariff, will continue to warp the natural economic development of the Dominion, and increasingly depress the rural industries upon which the country's comfort and prosperity wholly Insofar as it aims at exempting rural industries from regulation by the Court the Bill is commendable, but the only real relief that can be given to these industries is amending legislation which will preserve them from the indirect burden of inflation in other industries. It is not to be expected that the Labour Party will show any goodwill towards the fanner, whom the Labour demagogues and their followers have always bitterly hated. But one might have expected of a really intelligent man like Mr H. E. Holland some understanding of the fact that whatever injures or hampers the primary producer must injure the masses of the people. He cannot share the delusion of the urban Socialist that the country could get on very well without the farmer. He must know that the great indebtedness of the country—against which, when it suits his Party ends to do so, he can declaim as gravely as anybody—is in a large measure due to the Arbitration Act. It is not the purpose of organised Labour to admit such considerations as these, but in due course the country will be unable to escape them.