The Daily News. MONDAY, MARCH 30. CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 85, 30 March 1908, Page 2

The Daily News. MONDAY, MARCH 30. CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION.

I'Nenone in business who is constrained to employ labor feels liow severely the labor lawa operate against him. A man ill a very small way of business has to register his premises as a factory; otherwise he might be exposed to a line if his assistant was caught lighting a lire in the workshop to make himself a cup of tea. Notice of dismissal must be given to servants under pains and penalties, but servants pack up their things and leave their employers in the lurch whenever they hive a mind to. Numbers of inconveniences and annoyances have in the past been submitted to witii tho best grace that could be brought t*> bear because it has been felt that the law must be respected. Ever since the Arbitration and Conciliation Act / was passed labor has appeared as the appellant; labor's demands have been persistent and apparently insatiable. ;is nas already been stated in these columns, the Conciliation and Arbitration Act was designed to assist, and protect labor, and under its provisions the gains ot labor have Imen very great. Employers of labor in almost every departmenl 01 human life, probably because their operation was new and strange, have lelt ax grieved at the summary treatment to which they were exposed under the labor laws, but they have submitted so that the country might be free from the liability to intolerable strikes. A strike, it should be remembered, is like a twoedgod sword —it cuts both ways. If employers sutler, so also do employees, but the most monstrous feature of a strike is that the whole community—not in

any way involved in the cause of the dispute—i, liable to sutler too. To be relieved from the danger of this injustice tho Conciliation and Arbitration Act was accented by those who luid iii.. belief in its efficacy. As has been indicated in these columns, long antecedent to the appointment of Sir. Justice Mm the miners of the West Coast, had manifested their want of confidence in the Arbitration Court by seeking to override it. Apparently to be of any value to them a Court must sit to register their decrees—to endorse what they "decide." They are the only ]ieople who buffer, and justice is always in their demands. To show how sound their judgment is and how extremely moderate their inclinations are, they announce an open deiiince of tile law. Do a perfect handful of men imagine that they can destroy these institutions which the representatives of the people have deliberately set up? Is suen an attitude the way to win the sympathy for their cause? If the strikers at Blackball were gifted with any perception they would realise that the assistance which has so far been extended to thein lias been of the nature of gins from brothers, and for 110 other reason than because they were brothers and had wives and children dependent upon tliein. If tile grounds of complaint were just—ii the real motives lying at the bottom were sound and politic— the assistance rendered would be large and general. Not only would the whole body of workers be with them. Inn others not in any wav associated "'itli

labor would be ready with practical sympathy. The Trades Councils, of and Southland, Ixisides unions in other parts, have told them that they recognise the advantages of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and arc not prepared to assist in its abrogation. Ami now the Tyneside miners and the wharf laborers, upon whose support the lila.kballers were counting, liavc refused V 1 strike. It is certain that, apart fro-n all other considerations, the people as a whole will, as we said last week, unite in supporting the Government in any reasonuble action that may be taken to ensure that the law is enforced.