EMPLOYERS' FEDERATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 170, 27 October 1910, Page 3

EMPLOYERS' FEDERATION.

A WARNING TO LABOR. MOST UNSATISFACTORY POSITION. % Telegraph.—Press Associati««. Wellington, Yesterday. Tlie annual report of the New Zealand Employers' Federation submitted at to-day's meeting deals at some length with the labor laws. There have not been, says the report, any large industrial upheavals during the year, nor has there been any cessation of the continuous demands for higher wages and shorter hours. On the contrary, these demands are becoming more insistent and persistent than ever, and signs are not wanting, especially amongst the stronger and better organised trade unions, showing that the} realise that the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act has done as much aa is possible, and that they are now prepared to adopt a " might-is-riglit" attitude and to drift back to the"old order of things. After referring to some demands, the report proceeds: "Ii would appear that the day of reckoning is not far off, and that ere long the question whethar the arbitration law is to remain will have to be faced. There must either be a law governing labor conditions, or the workers must depend on the strength of their organisations to secure their rights, as the present half-and-balf position is most unsatisfactory, and either the workers as a whole must be loyal to the Act or the Act must go. Whether the best interests of the country would be served by an application of the survival of the fittest principle is. a matter for serious consideration by all concerned —employers, workers and public alike; but there can be no two opinions expressed about the necessity of all affected being loyal to the Act if it is to remain on the Statute Book.

ELECTION OF OFFICERS. ] Wellington, Yesterday. At th# annual' meeting of the New Zealand Employers' Federation .to-day the Hon. C. M. Luke, Wellington, was elected president. Mr. W. M. Seott, Dunedin, was again nominated employers' representative on the Arbitration Court, and Mr. W. Pryor, Wellington, as deputy representative. The Bill amending the Arbitration Act was considered and referred to the Finance Committee and secretaries present for report.