THE TROUBLE IN THE MINES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 398, 6 January 1909, Page 6

THE TROUBLE IN THE MINES.

; AccoEDiNa ,to the" Minister, for Labour, the Government is in 'the happy position oi\havirig no concern whatever -nrith the crisis in the mihihg industry. :Not only it no power ; to do anything—beyond giving the good: advice and issuing the exhortations which it is its duty to give and to; issue—towards smoothing the way to a peaceable settlement of the quarrel between the contending, parties; it has not even any duty to perform, so Mr. Millar says, in the way of prosecuting anybody. Surely this is a very strange situation. An Act devised to prevent, and: amended to prohibit, industrial' disturbances,: has been on the Statute Book for many, years; less, than. six months ago it. was reconstructed with the utmost solemnity in order to make industrial peace secure, and to prevent even a small breach-in the;continuity of industry; to!day a Very largo industry is suspended, and the Minister for Labour declares , that the Act can take no cognisance of !the. fact! ;Most people will have been imagining that this■; breach in the continuity 'of the mining /industry- must : mean that there has been either a strike or .a lock-out. -In theeyea of ..Me. Millar, there, has been neither the one nor ;thc iother. / The men, he, holds, have not ; gone on strike,' arid', with, 'admirable, .im--partiality he holds also,ihat : the em-' ployera have. not • instituted a lock-out/ The effect that a strike' of, a lock-out; or both combined, would produce, has been' produced, but we arc' : told that neither "strike" nor "lock-out" is the term that fits the situation. The question arises, and should be settled: What is the correct designation for this violent rupture of the ordinary. relations between masters and men in one of tho' largest industries in the country? Whether Me. Millar—^h o has, of course, taken the advice of. the Crown Law Office—has diagnosed the legal posi-' tion accurately, is, of course; ,ja question that no layman can' presume, to determine; Butit' is; equally a question the determination of which the public will notbe content'to leave with the Govern-, ment's; logal advisers.. If ,Mn.'Millar's contention is correct, the Arbitration Aqt stands urgently in need of still further revision/ Kcvißion, however, must notbe undertaken unless it is really necessary, and there is only ono way of determining whether the Act is defective as a preventive of such fractures of industrial continuity as this/- The public was'led' to believe that where it did not prevent tho Act would prohibit, continuance of industrial war. Not ,a word was said during, the last session of. Parliament that would'encourage a Bingle doubt'] of the efficacy of the Act to; punish, not only large, 1 but, even .small, disturbances of industry., ,Yet, on/the very first-occasion: of trouble, we have the Minister saying that the sudden and violent breach of the industrial peace .is beyond the'riach of, the Act.. Parliament cannot be blamed i for haying failed to' foresee, tho possibility of-an, industrial deadlock like the

present one. In point of fact, it is doubtful whether Parliament's procedu.ro on general principles in framing the amended Arbitration Act has not made the Act wide enough to cover the present trouble. The Government's non possilmus attitade is in effect a statement that Parliament failed in the most carefully pondered of all its attompts to mako the Arbitration Act a safo armour against industrial war. If the Act cannot, deal with the present state of war, then either the Act is most stupidly defective, or'the principlo of the Act is quite unsound. We have always held the latter \'iew, and confirmations of ouf view arrive with unfailing- regularity. If .Mr. Millar's . view of the law is correct, and the Act can take no cognisance of any disturbance which arises out of a conflict upon a matter foreign-to an award—ho summarises the position thus: "the men were prepared to go back to work on theitefms of the award, and the mine-owners wore willing to employ them on the, terms- of', the award, the cause of the present dispute being quite a different. matter"— then a body of workers who desire to strike can ovade the law by making any fantastic demand of their employers that occurs to them and refusing to return to work unless it is acceded, to. This is a point. which cannot bo satisfactorily settled save by the Arbitration Court itself. In the meantime no: time should be lost in putting the conciliation machinery of the Act in operation. -. '.