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Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1409, 9 April 1912, Page 4

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ON COMPULSORY ARBITRATION,

(By Telegraph.— Spccial Correspondent.) .. _■ , Auckland, April 8. D „ aTclock WUsou, secretary of tlio British Seamen's Union, arrived in Auckland by tho Jlaheno from Sydney yesterday. Perhaps tho most interesting statement which ho has to mako iu connection with his stay in Australia is that ho has come to realise tho benefits of compulsory arbitration. "Yes," ho said, "it I s u . e I have always been opposed to this method of settling disputes, ami havo repeatedly opposed tho resolutions moved by Mr. Ben 'l'illett at the Trades Unions Congresses, while I havo been in Australia. However, I havo had an opportunity of carefully watching tho operations of the system, and, when I return to England, I will try to arrange with tho shipowners to agreo to a Compulsory Arbitration Bill to apply to tho shipping trade only. If such an agreement is arrived at there should be 110 difficulty in getting a Bill through. The other trades, 1 think, would not oppose it." Asked if he considered ' tho shipping trade more esptecially adapted to compulsory arbitration, Mr. Wilson remarked that the shipping trade had done fairly well under the system in Australia, anil there was good reason to believe that tho same would apply in England. The visiting organiser paid a tribute , , . • Justice Higgins, President of tho Arbitration Court in Australia. "Ho is a man who seems to have made a special study of industrial conditions," Mr. Wilson said, "and I consider him to bo an exceedingly pood judge—one who could not be fooled by claptrap at least,"