The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1927. TINKERING WITH ARBITRATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 181, 21 October 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1927. TINKERING WITH ARBITRATION

AGAIN, the legislative mountain has laboured and brought forth a mouse. The Government’s latest amending measure for improving the law concerning the settlement of industrial disputes by dispassionate judicial means, instead of by industrial conflict, has been submitted to the ill-balanced will of 1 arliament. It can be said fairly that, outside the circle ot Conservatism, the Arbitration Act Amendment Bill will not arouse enthusiasm anywhere. Nor will it add anything to the flat credit of the Reform Administration for constructive statesmanship. The thing is not as good as the supporters of the Government expected, while it is a great deal worse than its Labour opponents anticipated. . . Of course, the measure, in practice (to pursue the initial metaphor and complete the picture), mfly prove that the little Reform mouse will yet gnaw the net of compulsory arbitration that has held the distempered lion of industrial Labour from raging destructiveness for so many years. There is at least more reason to expect future trouble than there is cause in the Bill for anticipation of industrial peace. Though the measure is typically “a thing of shreds and patches,” it might really have been a great deal worse. It alters the present constitution of the Arbitration Court, but the proposed alteration does not assume the grotesque form that rumour so plausibly predicted. The President of the Court is to remain in office, but in such changed circumstances of associate-co-operation and advice as to make his judicial responsibilities more onerous than ever. Even those who have not been able on all occasions to applaud the whole of his'service will be sincerely glad that Mr. Justice Frazer’s experience, thorough knowledge and impartial judgment are to be retained as the dependable core of the new system, which is bound to be subjected to severe tests in the near future. As for everything else, the Bill is a loose experiment, touched here and there with the eurse of Keuben : “Unstable as water thou slialt not excel.” A vital change has been proposed in respect of the appointment of arbitrators. The present lay members of the Court are to he pensioned off. They are to give way to two arbitrators, each directly representing the respective parties to every dispute. If there should be any outstanding advantage in this alteration, it promises to be most often oil the side of the employers whose wealthy associations will be able to select the best expert available for each dispute. The aim of the Administration is, of course, to improve the technical knowledge of the Court, but it may not always hit the mark. The most drastic provision in the new measure is that which exempts the main farming industries from the operations of the Act. In this section the definition of the farming industry and allied industries is anything but clear. For example, are shearers to he excluded? If so, there will he trouble in the shearing camps. In effect, the amending Bill gives the farming community almost everything that it lias sought, except the murder of the Arbitration Court, and that tribunal has been mutilated so severely that it may not live a long time. In primary production there are roughly 70,000 proprietors and 72,000 wage-earners engaged. Most of these are to be given the joy of fixing the price of labour on the principle of collective bargaining. Then, outside the Court’s jurisdiction, is the mighty army of public servants employed in the arduous work of general and local government, numbering 82,000, and collecting £18,500,000 in wages. Those workers who are left will have to fight harder than ever to hold their own against the wage-squeezing power of Conservatism. Industrial peace seems farther away than ever.

THREE CHURCH TOPICS

THE establishment of a permanent cathedral by the Anglicans of Auckland is practically decided upon. It only needs the support of the community to accomplish the desire. Much money will be required to build this cathedral, but, fortunately, religion in these days is very catholic and when contributions are called for, it will be found that followers of all faiths have subscribed. This is assured. Meanwhile, let there be considered the case of “the poor parson.” One might go far to find a man who has more diversified duties, to be tactfully discharged, than the vicar—yet we have an Archbishop pleading to have the vicar paid £350 a year, so as to make him “reasonably free of financial worries.” Consider it—a pound a day to maintain a home, a wife and a family; to pay all out-of-pocket expenses, to contribute to “the deserving poor,” and so on! It is a positive shame that the Archbishop has to plead for so low a living wage. Still, it may “do to go on with.” Many vicars must now manage with much less. ITow they do so is between themselves, and God. Coming close on these considerations of the Diocesan Synod is something yet untried, but promising much. That is the formation of the Anglican Broadcasting Association, a company that will seek no profit, but be content with spreading the Word in divers ways to those who cannot come to church—the “halt, the lame and the blind.” In this triple improvement there is much hope for religion in Auckland. There will he a cathedral as the centre of the faith; there will be a clergy paid at least enough to live upon; there will he the breath of the Church wafted by wireless to those who cannot attend the Church.