The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1929.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 June 1929, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1929.

THE FEDERAL ARBITRATION - • SYSTEM. Tiik Federal Arbitration Court seems to be approaching an inglorious end in Australia. The impending dissolution of it has been announced by the Prime Minister at the Premiers’ Conference at Canberra. The heads of the State Governments applaud a decision which marks, says the “Otago Times,” the turning of another sorry page in the more recent history of the application of the arbitration law to industry in the Commonwealth. Mr Bruce has been forced to the conclusion that the system under which

the Federal Arbitration Court lias been functioning cannot survive. The responsibility for the abolition of it is placed by him upon the States in their refusal to agree to legislation by which the conflict and overlapping of awards might be overcome. The justification for the Fedora I arbitration system has been that it dealt with disputes that were not confined to one State only. To that extent it should have reined : ed a ‘ weakness in the scheme of industrial arbitration as applied by individual States. Hut the Federal Arbitration Court has been no Hooted, and so helpless to assert itself to the desired purpose, that the Commonwealth Government has been forced to recognise the creation of an intolerable situation under which there was a tendency to bring the judges and the law itself into disrepute. Instead of filling in practice, i)s was the intention, the role of a superior tribunal the decisions of

which should be binding throughout the Commonwealth, the Federal Court has in. certain decisions been providing stimulus for an industrial striie that has almost torn the country into two factions. The existence ol both Federal and State industrial awards has rendered the satisfactory operation of the Federal arbitration law difficult The State Governments have not been willing tluu the Commonwealth should have luU industrial powers, and so be in an overruling position on any point in respect of wind, there be a c.asli between Federal and Sta.o awards. The strike of the timber workers has helped to precipitate matt-rs. Like that of the wa.ersido workers, it is a strike against an award of the Federal Arbitration Court, and Federal unions have seen assisting it c by compelling their members to pay le.ics and other contributions so as to render the continuance of it possible. Air Bruce recently warned the unionists concerned that the result of action of this kind must he to discredit the principle ol arbitration and to imperil the existence of the Federal arbitration system ii tit the striae has gone on in Sydney and in ALelbourne. The officials of me unions paid no heed to the warning that their attitude meant a challenge to. the principle of arbitration. They began a campaign of distortion and misrepresentation of the terms of the award, and apart from the unemployment and material loss that it has caused, the strike has had an accompaniment of violent conduct on the part of lawless men. All this represents only too plainly, of course, the failure of the Federal arbitration system. It is fairly apparent that if the Federal arbitration law has served no better purpose than to be a source of conflict and loss tb the community, and to bring the Federal authority itself more or less into contempt, it is best repealed. When the awards of the Federal Court are flouted and ignored, ilien the authority Court is seriously diminished, and when a judge of the Court is defied and treated with disrespect the law as an institution is brought more or less into disrepute. No self-respecting Government could look on calmly and see a position of this kind perpetuated. Condemning what it calls the “fatal mistake” of mixing the judiciary up with industrial arbitration, the Argus said a few days ago: “The steady growth of Australian indifference to law is flie lawless child of this statutory perversion of the true duty of a. judiciary. It drags the law down into the market place, to-be the sport of the passions of the mob, stripped of the respect which is its due, the respect which alone can save any society from shameful dissolution ” If the aboliI ion of the Federal Court will prevent the spread of an undesirable state of things. particularly represented in the attitude shown towards the law in Australia, its disappearance may he attended with some Compensation even in the minds of those who believe in the Federal arbitration system.