“A VICIOUS SPIRAL”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 34, 3 May 1927, Page 13

“A VICIOUS SPIRAL”

ARBITRATION COURT’S INFLUENCE ECONOMISTS’ indictment (Special to THE SU2?.)^

CHRISTCHURCH, Monday. „ Th Arbitration Court Has been oirhl p.th. most potent instrument P musing the stagnation of proaction and the standards of living jn the Dominion.” canterbury Chamber of Comreceived to-night an interesting m . nre bared by the Economics of Canterbury College on h N'ew Zealand arbitration system, “'re is a considerable amount of ' in the statement that in adjusttnl -sees to a rising cost of living, inS . Arbitration Court moves in a Sious spiral ita °" n making.” ..-The-case for the arbitration sysmust be judged on the balance of k advantages and disadvantages,' the . the bulletin. “There are those B tfe would suggest its entire abolition; many more who consider that . renulres thorough investigation with 11 YJ, to modification and amendment, o h*, received much credit for good 1 „riTin the past. It possesses elements J° a r t are still of great value; but at the

present time it fariv. i* rts object—the maintenance of industrial peace.. It is responsible for seriously retarding the adjustment of the price disparities which are the chief cause of depression ;n tile primary industries and of unemployment. Hs limited economic vision goes little beyond the sheltered industries which it investigates. Its chief basis for wage standards is founded on fallacy and over the vital internal relations of Labour and Capital in much of our productive industry, it has laid the dead hand of public control. Twenty years have passed since the period of pace procured by the passage of the Act in 1894 closed. It was peace not so much procured by compulsory arbitration as by a general improvement in the conditions of labour, by relief from the period of depression, by rising prices making higher wages possible. “Then the Court’s power to secure peace began to wane, and from 1908 to 1925 there have been 68S strikes and 7 lockouts. Two hundred and forty-two stoppages were mining disputes; 215 shipping and waterside troubles. In the industrial fields controlled by militant unions the Court works only at the convenience of the unions.”