The Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9. AN INDUSTRIAL UPHEAVAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 235, 9 February 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9. AN INDUSTRIAL UPHEAVAL.

One of the most remarkable features of modern New Zealand life is illustrated in the repeated quarrels which "Labor" has with the machinery which it invented. It fought manfully for an Arbitration Court, and obtained it. The Court has had as its president a judge of the Supreme Court Bench, and the justice of the earlier claims of Labor were recognised by the Court which granted Labor's demands. Nobody doubts for an instant that the Arbitration Court did many acts of justice to the worker, made his life easier, his wages higher, and his position more secure. But there is plenty of evidence forthcoming at the j present time to show that some sections of Labor desire to "rend the hand that fed them." The President of the Arbitration Court, Mr. Justice Sim, is offensive to some sections of Labor. A judge who finds against one of two litigants offends the loser, but the people of the country do not rise and threaten revolution because the judge has exercised the powers given him by statute. The Otago Trades and Labor Council are ■ offended with Mr. Justice Sim. The President's sin Is that he has held one scale for employer and one for worker. The Otago body would not have been offended with this judge if he had consistently favored one side, that side being their own. His offence is that he has been more judge than partisan. Small bodies of organised men in New Zealand assume the possession of remarkable powers. This Otago body believes evidently it is powerful enough to threaten "an industrial upheaval such as New Zealand has not previously known," and "warns the Government." The obvious desire of a body which has presumption enough to speak for New Zealand is for Judge Sim's removal from' the Bench, or, failing this, the President's partiality, by which he ceases to be judge and becomes pro-Labor and antiemployer. By "warning" the Govern- i ment this militant body asks it to defeat the purpose of its own industrial legislation—to give impartial hearing to both sides of an industrial, dispute, and to see that justice is done. The President of the Arbitration Court may hear i reams of evidence, but is guided not by his personal feelings, but by law. He has no other guide whatever. If the Government takes the "warning" it is ordered to take, it must cither wipe out the Arbitration Court or amend the Act by way of robbing employers of evcry x possible Tight under it. That is to say, it must be'absolutely partisan to save the country from "an industrial upheaval." If "the Government allows things to drift" .(which sounds as vague and incomprehensible as may be) the workers—meaning those who use and do not primarily produce threaten to starve themselves in order to better their position. These gentle citizens whose quarrel is that a judge is not unchangeably biassed in their favor, presume that the people of New Zealand are incensed at Judge Sim because the Otago Trades and Labor Council are incensed with him. The conclusion come to, therefore, is that because a judge does not grant every concession demanded, the industries which supply the pro-concessionist shall be crippled and killed if necessary. Here is the argument: "We make chairs. Smith owns the chair factory and pays the wages. We are not satisfied with the wages. We take our case to the Arbitration Court, and the President is quite satisfied we are getting as much wages as we deserve. Therefore, the President is biassed and should be removed. If he is not removed wc will 'industrially upheave' and ruin Smith, who pays our wages. When we have ruined Smith, we shan't be able to make a living in the chair business any longer. In fact, wc are content to go to destruction as long as Smith is destroyed." To pursue the argument. People don't eat chairs, but the chair-maker cats food. The foodmakers are not going to do anything so silly as to "industrially upheave," and the terrible Otago upheaver.s would be the most surprised people in the world if a branch of industry they never recognise ceased to operate and there was no "tucker" purchaseable with the accumulated strike funds. The Amalgamated Society of Bootscraper Operatives always believes that the community lives on bootscrapors and that the united voice of its operatives will upset the Government, depose the President of the Arbitration Court, make "the innocent suffer," and by some extraordinary process make tilings brighter and better for bootscraper operatives and their wives and families in the glorious future when "class consciousness" is sold in sixpenny bottles and a strike of blacksmiths interferes with the wheat harvest. These terrible Trades and Labor people try to smash a railway iron with a tack hammer. The inconvenience, starvation, death and injury wrought by such a threatened "upheaval" would be trivial enough except to themselves, who would do the starving. If they desire to bring about splendid disaster, in which all hands would join, they should begin a propaganda among the folk who use the soil, and not only those folk who subsist on it indirectly without tilling it. Tf thev desire a really national starve they must hit the food supply where it lives. Having done this we may all die together as a protest against Mr. Justice Sim.