The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26,1908. MR. MOLAR'S BILL.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 312, 26 September 1908, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26,1908. MR. MOLAR'S BILL.

Otm first criticism of the Arbitration Bill aa it emerged from Committee must take tho shape pf a compliment to Mr. Millab, op tho gooc| Bcnsa and fairmindedness tjiafc pharacteriped his steering of the measure thrpugh a maze of very active disoussion. It is truo that }ie endeavoured to convinco tho House that during the currency or pendency of ji strike the newspapers should refrain from comment upon the circumstances of it, but he was clearly not strpngly enamoured of this bad proposal, and he made no attempt to forcc it upon the Hope. Tho major portion of the criticism to which the Bill was subjected came from a little knot of ultra-Radical members bent upon so wounding the measure as to Ipavc it at the mercy of militant trades unionism, and if thoy achieved little or nothing, these members jit any rate revealed in tho Minister a very wholesome frame of mind. Over and over again, when warding off some blow at. tho efficicncy of Part I of tho BilV ha tarercEccd ogmionn .wiiich k«4_

us to liopo that his mind is in tho best condition for tho ripening and development there of the inevitable conviction that tho principle of compulsory industrial arbitration is unsound. To the attempt to whittle down the penalty for striking, and to exempt from liability any strike upon a point not dealt with in the governing award, he offered the strongest opposition, and for the soundest -of reasons. He " wanted to make tho uwn who struck feel that they had a 'great responsibility 'on them," and ho refused to countenance the suggestion that under 'the Act certain strikes in subject industries would be lawful. The same anxiety to secure justice 'inspired his resistance to a proposal which would have led to a niagara of appeals against • decisions under the Act, his ready acceptance of tho suggestion' that the Declaratory Judgments Act should not apply tp the industrial courts, and his refusal to encourage a plague of unnecessary little ujaions by lowering to a point of absurdity the minimum membership necessary to registration. Not less wholesome than this insistence upon fcty? rule £hat if jfchey .desire the benefits of arbitration the unions must accept its obligations also, was the Minister's obvious an?4cty tha.t the integrity tjf the Arbitration Court should he fully respected. He defended the Court's right to refuse an award if it thought fit—in this connection' he let fajl .the richly-significant hint that there might • some day be a classification of the trades and industries to which the Act should apply, a hint that we can only note here and he further affirmed the desirablencss of great freedom in the Court with a clause to protect awards from variation by statute during their currency, and another clause empowering tho Court to yary- its awards as it deenjs proper. We may note that the second of these proposal? i? a risky experiment, and that, being hostile,to the principle that the Act prescribes known and fixed rules for a settled period, it has the nature of a partial admission that that rigidity of conditions which is the essence of compulsory arbitration is not essentially virtuous. But these proposals are evidence of the good intentions of tho Minister They at any rate show that ho is alive to the necessity for, leaving the . Court as free a 5 ppsgible. - The Bill everywhere bears tho impress of Mr. Millau's practical mind : we may accept it as. Mr.'Millar's own Bill at last, anci an infinitely- better and more sensible Bill ,than if the 'Attorney-General had had the handling of business. • should add that we are as firmly convinced as ever that compulsory industrial cannot succeed. Wo affirm that it' is inexpedient. But there arc unwise policies which breed' injustices, and unwise policies that are free from the taint of want of equity. Mr. Millar is to be congratulated on having made ,an excellent attempt to make his unsound arbitration policy one of the latter species. In o,ther words, ho has done the best that could be .done with a principle essentially hostile to real industrial progress.