IMPORTANT ARBITRATION POINT

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 351, 31 March 1910, Page 5

IMPORTANT ARBITRATION POINT

POWERS OF INDUSTRIAL ARBITERS By Caoie.—Press Association.-^Copyrigut Received March 30, 10.10 p.m. Sydney, Last Night. . An important point of arbitration law has been decided by the High Court. The toiiowing questions of iaw were submitted for determination: —Whether under the Constitution it was competent for the Commonwealth Court or Conciliation and Arbitration to make any award which is inconsistent with certain awards or the determinations of State \Vage& Boards; The contention was set up that in making an award in a dispute extending beyond the limits of a State the President of the Arbitration Court was not bound by any State law'regulating the industry, but might prescribe whatever he thought necessary in order to bring about an effectual settlement. The Chief Justice said that arbitration meant, primarily, determination by a tribunal which was not an ordinary Court of Justice, bound to administer strict rules of common statute law, but a. tribunal selected by the parties to a controversy to which both 'submitted themselves, and by whose determination they agreed to be bound. The efficacy of the award was derived from the agreement of submission, although statutory provisions for its enforcement were not commonly adopted. T.he foundation of the authority of arbitrators was the consensual agreement of parties. In the course of time the meaning had been extended so as to include determination .by arbiters. Difference in mode of choice did not alter the fundamental notion of the functions of an arbiter, which was to make a determination that parties were bound to obev. Tt followed that whatever parties could lawfully agree to do they might be ordered to do; and whatever they could not lawfully agree to do they could not be ordered to do by a tribunal. These conclusions were incontrovertible, and, indeed, were not controverted ns far as regarded an arbitration tribunal lawfully established within anv civilised State.

By a majority, the Court answered the question in the negative.