ARBITRATION AWARDS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2033, 19 March 1907, Page 4

ARBITRATION AWARDS

Under the heading “Tlio Silence of the Labor Party,” tlio Wellington Post states:—

Interviewed by a Christchurch Press reporter a little more than a fortnight ago in regard to the struggle with tho slaughtermen, tho Minister for Education said : ‘‘lt would bo ridiculous' to suppose that tho Act had broken down, or will bo allowed to break down becauso ono section of workers thinks fit to set it at defiance, moro especially when we remember that a very considerable proportion of tho section of men involved are really only casual workers in the colony. It is very significant that not a single mooting of unionists has expressed sympathy with those men in tlio action they have taken.” Tho ActingPremier and the Minister lor Labor also laid a propor emphasis on tho fact that a large proportion of tho mon concerned in the strike, and probably nearly all tho ringleaders, were moroly sojourners in tho land, upon whoso fortunes oven tho utter wreck of tho Arbitration Act would have comparatively littlo effect. But what weight is left in these arguments now that the struggle has proceeded for a whole month, and has gone to far greater lengths of deliberate lawlessness,and tho silonco which Mr 1' owlds regarded as of such hopeful significance has continued almost unbroken ? The only exception to the rule of silence, so Inr as wo are aware, lias been the resolution of the Wellington Trades and Labor Council, which expressed sympathy wit'll the local slaughtermen at a timo when their action was supposed by themselves, and by everybody else, to bo a deliberate violation of tho law. But we cannot sec that the silonco of the other labor organisations is any less deplorable in its significance than this unfortunate resolution.

By this timo the workers can surely see that tlioy must either approve or repudiate tho tactics of the slaughtermen, and that silence after tho matter has proceeded so far can only bo construed as approval. They should also bo able to sco that to express approval of tlicso tactics, or to fail to record a clear and emphatic condcmnaton of them, is tantamount to a declaration of war against tlio Act, and against any system of conciliation and arbitration with the force of law behind it. It is utterly impossible for the unions to retain the Arbitration Court as a moans of raising the wages and improving the conditions of labor, and at the same timo to retain the right to strike, which moans tho right to violate the decisions of the Court whenever they are adverse. The recent epidemic of strikes has indeed involved something a good deal worso than mere resontmont at a particular decision of "tho Court. Hero and in several othor places the rates of pay had been fixed by voluntary agreement between the parties, and the men struck bforc the Arbitration Court had had an opportunity of revising them. It was therefore not an objection to a particular award, but a total repudiation of tho authority and competence of the Court, that inspired tho men; and in the face of this tho leaders of the Labor Party have regarded it as consistent with their duty to remain silent. But if this tacit approval of lawlessness is to be maintained, wliat a farce it is for the same men to retain on the order paper of their coming conference all the proposals for tho amendment of the Act with which it at present abounds? They ask for universal preference to unionists, and the true logic of any preference at all is admirably set out by the Bulletin in a spirited attack upon the wreckers of the Act in New South Wales:—“To give preference to unionists is simply to give preference to men who have entered into a bond t'o obey the Court, and so give the employer security.” While the Bulletin was thus championing tlio claims of the unionists of Australia to preference, a section of the party hero was endeavoring to cancel the bond on the faith of which alone can preference be. based. Tho Labor Party will give an autlioritativo “Yes” or “No” to these tactics, and inferentially to the whole system of conciliation and arbitration, at tho Trados and Labor Conference.