The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1927 A DEFORMED REFORM BILL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 209, 23 November 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Stre et, Auckland, N.Z. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1927 A DEFORMED REFORM BILL

THERE is so little that is good now left in-the Arbitration Act Amendment Bill that the Minister of Labour would be well advised to abandon it as an excellent intention which assumed the form of a legislative mistake. The Labour Bills Committee of the House, after taking thorough representative evidence on the measure, has mutilated it out of recognition and almost beyond liope of recovery. In the raw facetiousness of the Labour Opposition Mr. Anderson’s Bill has lost its limbs, its head and suffers from shell-shock. Surely, in that plight, a quick death is indicated as an act -of political mercy. If the Government persist in dragooning Parliament into accepting the remnants of the torn Bill, its object could only be interpreted as a forceful policy of saving the Government’s face rather than as a logical, commendable effort to save the maimed measure. The miserable thing, as it is now, is really not worth saving. As the Leader of the Opposition fairly phrased it last evening, even the original Bill did not have a friend in all the world. Indeed, one may add, it was despised alike by the organised employers and workers, and ridiculed by the majority of neutral commentators. The evidence submitted to the Labour Bills Committee was, according to Parliamentary testimony, overwhelmingly against the Bill. This phase of the question is exemplified by the drastic changes wrought on the Ministerial measure by the investigating committee. All the fantastic clauses providing for an alteration in the present constitution of the Arbitration Court—a constitution which, despite some inevitable defects in practice, has worked well and rendered appreciable industrial service throughout three decades—have been struck out by the committee. A similar fate was thrust on the proposal to give the Minister of Labour power to call compulsory conferences in order to avoid strikes and lock-outs. There need be no regret over the deletion of that futile idea. All that is left in the riven measure is so provocative in purpose that the Labour Bills Committee might also have cut it out as a potential industrial tumour. But the committee has recommended the retention of the clauses providing for the exemption of the farming industry from the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Court. It also favours the provision for payment by results and the retention of the clause which requires the Court to fix wages in relation to economic and financial conditions of industries in particular and national trade and industry generally, as well as the cost of living. In making these recommendations, the Labour Bills Committee has not been logical. It has failed to realise that if the constitution of the Court be not altered to include expert economists in its personnel, then the Court will remain incompetent to fix wages in exact relation to economic and financial conditions. As things are (and these are not bad enough yet to be intolerable) the system of industrial arbitration is not ready for such an experiment. It would be infinitely better for the good of employers and workers alike to carry on with the existing machinery for the settlement of disputes and adjustment of wages until the Government, recognising its own defects in constructive statesmanship, lias arranged a conference of experts for the purpose of devising a superior system. Meanwhile, the Reform Administration should forget the clamour of disgruntled farmers and withdraw its deformed measure.