Ragitikei Advocate. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1909. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9391, 10 March 1909, Page 4

Ragitikei Advocate. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1909. EDITORIAL NOTES.

THE recent great strike and the lock-out in the British shipbuilding industry has apparently taught both employers and workers a lesaon as to the wastefulness of this form of industrial warfare. The Home papers report that an agreement has now beeh arrived at which will form a landmark in the history of conciliation. The agreement is between the Shipbuilding Employers’ Federation, comprising both shipbuilders and ship repairers all over the country, and some 36 trade unions—-“the federation and the unions recognising that it is the best interests of both em-

ployers'and workmen that arrangements should be made whereby questions arising may be fully discussed and settled without stoppages of work,” The fundamental principle of the agreement is that there shall be no suspension of work, either by strike or lock-out, in any locality when a'.dispute arises, before the whole procedure of conciliation agreed upon is carried out. It is declared that changes in wages due to the general conditions of the shipbuilding inudustry (and not to local circumstances) shall be termed ‘‘general, fluctuations,” and that these shall apply to all the trades comprised in the agreement and in every federated yard at one and the same time, syid to the same extent. Thus an advance cannot be made or a reduction compelled in any one trade in any one district to the prejudice of any other. By the second clause of the it is laid down that alterations of wages shall not be made oftener than once in six months, and that ‘‘general fluctuations” shall be at the rate of 5 per cent, on piecework prices and Is per week (or a farthing an hour) in time wages. Either side may call a conference to discuss alterations in, wages, and wages are thus made a trade question applying to the whole country; and no trade can get an advance or suffer a reduction without all the other trades participating. The reward of labour is to he dependent on the general condition of the industry, and in determining that condition all the trades must confer with the employers. To deal with questions other than wages conferences may be held between the employers and workers immediately concerned, and if these fail to solve the difficulty, representatives of the Employers Federation and the Unions in the district will meet. Should these methods not secure a settlement reference is made to a Great Court of Appeal consisting of representatives of all the employers and all the Unions. ‘‘This,” says a writer in the London Times, ‘‘is the most remarkable ?and pacific clause of the whole agreement. It means that no stoppage of work uuder any local or general dispute relating to one or more of the employers or one or more of tne trade unions can take place until the representatives of all the employers and of all the 26 or so trade unions have considered and decided on the matter. If the decision is against the employer, he must bow to the grand conference dr be expelled from the Federation, in which case he would be at the mercy of the trade unions. If the decision is against the workman, they must bow to the grand conference, or the, whole of the federated shipyards will be locked out against all the trades who are parties to the agreement. Needless to say, the whole of the trade unions will not submit to be deprived of work on account of the obstinacy or pugnacity of any one or more of the unions against whose pretensions they have decided in grand conference. Therefore, the trade union representatives will take care to secure power to enforce the decisions of the ferand conference. A dispute has no need to go further, for the parties to the grand conference, being members of the trade, are far more fitted to decide on the merits of any dispute than an outside arbiter or Court of Arbitration can ha. The shipbuilding trades will be their own arbiters, and settle their own dis-. putes themselves ih a general assembly of fellow workmen and fellow The power of striking, of course, remains with the men, hat it remains with the whole body of them in the' entire group of trade unions concerned, not with a single branch or even a single trade union in all its branches; and if the employers deem it necessary to lock ont the whole of the trades, and that they are not in the least likely to do unless the whole of the trades are united in opposition. If in the future there is to be an industrial fight in the shipbuilding industry it will have to be a national and absolutely comprehensive light from which each side mast always shrink.”

IT has been alleged that the timber industry has been suffering because of the importation of Oregon pine. The long continued J denunciation of the import of this timber, and the demand for restrictive duty, no doubt caused many to believe that the quantity brought to this oountry must be enormous. But the Year Book figures show that the import of Oregon pine was so small in comparison with the output of our mills that it could not possibly affect the industry. A'Parliamentaiy return shows that the quantity of Oregon pine imported into New Zealand during the five years ended August, 1908, was made up of thirty round logs, 4500 pailings, over six million laths and shingles and nearly ten million superficial feet of sawn and rough hewn timber. Now last year alone, the produce of the New Zealand mills amounted to over four hundred million feet. It is obvious therefore that the decadence of the timber industry is due to other causes than the import of Oregon pine.