ARBITRATION COURT

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1928, Page 2

ARBITRATION COURT

SCIENTISTS’ CRITICISM,

(By Telegraph—Per Press Association

HOBART, Jan. 22. A l tilt* Science Congress, which concluded here yesterday, Professor Tocher, of New Zealand, during the discussion hy the Kconoinie Section of the merits and demerits of the arbitration system in Australia and in New Zealand, said that the unemployment has in New Zealand boon very severe for the last two years. This partly was owing to depression, caused hy a heavy fall in the prices of exports, and it had added force to certain criticisms 'of the State regulation of industrial relations. Last year, he said, a Hill was introduced hv the Government to amend the arbitration law, hut there came protests from both the employers and the trade unions, which caused most of the Hill to he withdrawn, ponding an inquiry into the operation ol compulsory arbitration. Professor looker went on to outline the salient points for an inquiry into the net material production of New Zealand, lie said that at least seventy per cent of it was primary production for export. The trade unions, as a whole, had enrolled only one-quarter of the wage-earners in New Zealand These unionists were largely in Unsheltered industries that were not meeting oversea competition. The system of compulsory arbitration was almost confined to the manual workers in the sheltered industries, but the standards which it laid down tended to become the standards for many other classes of employment beyond the immediate scope of the court, and ticfarmers found that they had to give similar rates and conditions. TinCourt, had adopted the cost of living as a basis, and it had a stereotyped standard of living. It I fad not succeeded in preventing strikes, partly because certain ol the militant unions chose to remain beyond its scope. -

Court operated over the part of industry where it was not required for tha‘ purpose. It had fostered unionism, rather than mutual agreement.

Professor Tocker thought that the disappearance of sweating and the improvement of conditions generally were due to an increase in prosperity, rather than to the court. A critical time had come with a fall of twenty per cent in prices in the biggest export industries.

Professor Fish, of New Zealand, said the arbitration system, to some degree, was responsible for the higher cost of living, but it would be risky to make any drastic changes in the industrial legislation in Australia and New Ze - land where the system of arbitration was so firmly established. Mr Malcolm Fraser, the New Zealand Government Statistician, said that the object of arbitration in the Dominion was to increase wages,