State and Industry

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 258, 21 January 1928, Page 1

State and Industry

ARBITRATION COURT CRITICISED New Zealand Professor’s Views By Cable. — Pres* Association. — Copyright. Received 10.48 a.m. HOBART, To-day. PROFESSOR A. H. TOCKER, of Canterbury College, New Zealand, during a discussion by the Economic Section of the Science Congress, of the merits and demerits of the arbitration system in Australia and New Zealand, said that unemployment in New Zealand had been very severe during the last two years, partly owing to a depression caused by the heavy fall of export prices, and it had added force to certain criticisms of the State regulation of industrial relations.

T AST year a Bill was introduced by the Government to amend the law, but protests train both the employers and the trade' unions caused most £>t it to be withdrawn, pending an inquiry into the operation of compulsory arbitration. He went on to outline the salient poiftts of the inquiry into the net material production of New Zealand, and said that at least 70 per cent, was primary production for export. Trade unions as a whole had enrolled only one quarter of the wageearners of New Zealand. These were largely in sheltered industries which were not meeting oversea competition. The system of compulsory arbitration was almost confined to manual workers in sheltered industries, but the standards laid down tended to become standards for many employments beyond the immediate scope of the court, and farmers found that they had to give similar rates and conditions. The court had adopted a cost-of-living basis. It had a stereotyped standard of living. It had not succeeded in preventing strikes, partly because certain militant unions chose to remain beyond its scope. The court operated over a part of industry where it was not required to prevent industrial strikes, and failed to operate where it was most required. For that purpose it had fostered unionism rather than mutual agreement.

Professor Tooker thought the disappearance of sweating and the improvement in conditions was generally due to the increase of prosperity, rather than to the court. A critical time had come with a fall of 20 per cent, in prices in the biggest export industries. Professor A. G. B. Fisher (University of Otago) said the arbitration system to some degree was responsible for the higher cost of living, but it would •be risky to make drastic changes in the industrial legislation of Australia and, Nc'w Zealand, where the system of arbitration was so firmly established. Mr. Malcolm Fraser, New Zealand Government Statistician, said the object .of arbitration in the Dominion was to increase wages.—A. and N.Z.