The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, APRIL 27, 1903.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 875, 27 April 1903, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, APRIL 27, 1903.

FURNITURE TRADE DISPUTE. As was generally anticipated aiter both sides of, the story had been heard, the applications in the Auckland furniture award cases were dismissed. Judge Cooper expressed the opinion (hat the matters giving rise to these applications were clothed with unmerited importance, and had been treated as raising <|iiestions of great public interest. Stripped of imagery and irrelevant point', Ihe whole matter, reduced in propor lions, amounted to Ibis : Of 3511 or

300 workers, seventeen were suspend ed by Lvo companies in the ordinary ordinary regulation of business, lie entirely disagreed with counsel That efficiency of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act was on trial, or 1 hat an adverse decision to the applicants emasculates the Court awards and destroys the efficiency of the present system of settling disputes. He did not doubt the true intent, meaning, and spirit of the Court’s powers to effectively enforce the statute. The workers’ representative dissented from the decision and the employers’ representative approved of it—which, of course, was to have been expected. In giving judgment, His Honor stated that the legitimate inference was a number of employees were suspended partly through the slack season and partly through incompetence to earn the increased minimum wage pending obtaining permits to work at a lower wage. No discrimination was shown between unionists and non-unionists in the selection of men suspended. It was in no sense a lock-out. There was no ground to infer that the action of the employers was intended to injure the Union or for any other purpose than 1 lie regulation of the company’s business. 'l'llis applied to the Tonsoii-Oarliok Company and I lie D.S.C. Both applications were dismissed. The case against the Employers' Union for assisting these lirms was also dismissed. It, is certain Unit no law can compel a man to run an tmprolilahle business, and the only wa\ of solving a problem of Ihe kind is for the Stale lo lake over such businesses. That might he done successfully with one or two businesses, but, when the number to he taken over increased, as it soon would, even the broad hack of (lie State would he hardly sufficient to bear the strain.