A NEW ARBITRATION JUDGE.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 101, 15 May 1937, Page 4

A NEW ARBITRATION JUDGE.

A definite announcement has- now been made as to the appointment of a judge to fill the place of His Honour Mr Justice Page while on sick leave from his position as president of the Industrial Arbitration Court. In selecting Mr P. J. O'Regan the Government has chosen one who, from his long and well studied practice before the Court, is eminently qualified for the position so far as concerns intimate acquaintance with our industrial laws. He is one, too, who as having so often acted as their advocate should be peculiarly acceptable to the trade unions. On the other hand, it may be tbought by some that this same experience may possibly affect hina in the way of unconsciously biassing him in favour of his old clients. That, however, is a thought which we believe may be instantly dismissed, for with the assumption of the judge's wig and robes Mr O'Regan may well be expected to reeognise the strictly judicia! nature of the highly responsible office to which he ha-s been elevated. The Court under Mr Justice O'Regan should losenone of its dignity and may gain a good deal in the way of contented compliance with its judgments from the fact that at least one body of suitors will scarcely care to dispute them. What has to be said in this respect, however, is to express a hope that the Government itself will lend some little more impar&ial support than it has hitherto done to the decisions of the Court. Since its advent to power there has been an undoubted growing disposition on the part of some of the trade unions to disregard these decisions and to take the law into their own hands. Despite all the new Government has done for the trade unionists, strikes, hold-ups, go-slows and all the other manifestations of the "militants" among them have been very much more in evidence during the last eighteen months than ever before. In almost every case such action has been taken with complete impunity and in at least one notorious cas.*. has met with something like a ministerial blessing. Possibly, with Mr O'Regan on the bench, the Government will see to it that the Court 's findings and the law generally are strictly observed on both, not only on the one, side.