ALLEGED CONCILIATION. Is the Game Worth the Candle?

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 127, 6 December 1902, Page 8

ALLEGED CONCILIATION. Is the Game Worth the Candle?

THE Abolition of Conciliation Boards Bill was not brought before Parliament during last session, because it did not exist. Probably, the looming up of the elections deterred members from seeking to interfere with the liberty of the conciliator and his guinea a day. The people are reminded of these "exeresences on the bod\ politic" by the fact that soon a new batch of conciliators are to be appointed, who will eaa-ly next year step into tttie old conciliators' shoes, and collect fees at the old rates when some dispute or other luokily crops up * * • They will probably decade, like their predecessors, after protracted examinations of cases set before them, that, as it would be wearisome to protract them any longer, the correct tiling to do is to send them, on in ttheir newly-en-tangled condition, to the Arbitration Court. As a benevolent institution, those Conciliation Boards are away ahead of most inventions of the kind existing. A beneficiaire, with the consent of hus fellow beneficiaires, has full power to assess his services a* as many guineas as lie thinks fit by sitting on a case, complicating it, and protracting it to his heart's content. * • * These Boards of Benevolence were designed to conciliate and pacify the employer and employed. It was to be a sort of advisory bench, composed of men of wisdom, who would strive, by tact and skill, to patch up industrial disputes by mutual compromise, and so help to keep down the fearful pile of work under which the President of the Arbitration. Court is- staggering. It is generally admitted by masters and workers alike that these Conciliation Boards have been an expensive farce. * • • There never has been any reason why industrial disputes should not be taken straight to the Arbitration Court. The facts elicited by the Boards, and reelicited by the Court, would be w'nnow-

Ed once only by competent persons, and expense would be saved. The President of the Arbitration Court is an overworked iudge, and the OondUiatioai Boards are the main cause of the overwork. hey cannot, or will not, conciliate. If the estimable people who compose the Boards are likely to suffer financially by being relegated to private life, the insight they have obtained into industries of all kinds should be well worth the guinea a clay that is loved and lost fro them. • # • Australia has adopted the Arbitration Court, but it did not see the necessity of setting up Boards to help the Courts to keep busy. A Commission came to New Zealand to watch the working of the system, aaid found that the Conciliation Board was the weak spot, and it is still hkely that many golden guineas will be paid to foster its weakness. Some of our new and youthful legislators, anxious to distinguish themselves, should attack, tooth, and nail, the conciliation business thait does not conciliate. The old hands have not said anything about it for quite a while.

Dear Lance. — When that non-political reception, was given to Mr. Seddon. on his return to the colony, Mr. Atkinson had a complimentary ticket sent to Mm, which he declined to accept, saying he would give Mr. geddon a" warm reception when he met him in -the House. How will he manage it now ?— Anxiotts to Know. [Mr. A. was reckoning without his host— otherwise the public. — Ed- F. L.]