WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1920, Page 11 (Supplement)

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

DISSATISFIED LABOR. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Dec. 15. The decision of the Arbitration Court reducing the suggested wage 3 bonus from 2s a week to 3s a weeU, naturally has produced a storm of protest from organised labor. Obviously the Court was influenced in its decision by a review of the Government Statistician's figures bearing on the cost of living, which revealed the fact that these figures did not represent actually what the worker was paying away in the maintenance of himself and his family, hut what he would have been paying had he purchased the same commodities in the same quantities after the rise in prices as he did before. Mr. Justice Stringer took upon himself to say that the Court was free to exercise its discretionary power in a matter of this kind and that it was not compelled to accept the Government Statistician's figures as conclusive.

CLAIMS FOR CONSIDERATION. Apparently, in fixing the bonus at 3s instead of lis, the president argued that the Court, accepting the Government Statistician's figures as the best evi» dence obtainable, had awarded the workers too large a payment, and that it was fair and reasonable to restore the proper balance by making a smaller payment now than otherwise would have been justified. This arrangement might have been entirely satisfactory had all the workers received the excessive payment at the same time and for the same period. But the Court was deluded with petitions yesterday from numbers of unions which claimed that their members had not received the bonus till long after it correctly represented the advance in the cost of living and that they were being put into the position of refunding a large part of the excessive payment made to other people.'

CONSTITUTION OF THE COURT. _ The Judge-President, who was practically sitting alone, the employers' representative and the employees' representative, of course, holding widely divergent views on the points involved, frankly admitted there was something in the claims put forward on behalf of the workers and took time to consider his decision. Probably this will not be available for a day or two. Meanwhile the incident has drawn renewed attention to the need for the revision of much of the Dominion's labor law. The constitution of the Arbitration Court is one of the features of the system that have been subject to much adverse criticism during recent years. The workers, or at any rate a large proportion of them, hold that under the present arrangement, Capital, by the very force of circumstances, is given more than its fair share of representation.

THE WORKERS' VIEW. Tiie suggestion in all this Is that the president must be influenced by the social atmosphere in which he m'ovns, and that his good intentions and high integrity are not sufficient to save him from the class conscience which operates at the ton as well as at the bottom of society and in all the grades between. The average worker's view appears to be that" all attempts towards conciliation or arbitration should be conducted by negotiation—that the round-the-table talk should be substituted for the Council and the Court—lmt the advantages lie seems to see In this system include his own possession of the strike wenpon to which the employer would hold no equivalent. It is here the parties split in their advocacv of reform, and the loader to bring them together is not yet in sight.

PUBLIC WORKS VOTES.

The Hon. J. G. Coates, who was away from Wellington when the local Progressive League roundly denounced his allocation of the public works expenditure, came forward this morning with a reply, which his critics refuse to accept as convincing. He objects first of all to the analysis of his expenditure

being made on the basis of progressive league districts, and not on land or provincial districts, which, he says, results in an unfair presentation of the position. Then he claims he allocated the money in the best interests of the districts as a whole, giving weight to the fact that the policy of the Government is to help those districts that are prepared to help themselves. Auckland had been particularly active in this respect, and consequently it had obtained by way of subsidies what appeared to be a large share of the funds available. The Wellington Progressive League is now protesting that this method of distribution is utterly unfair.

THE DEFENCE STAFF. Many members of the Defence Staff are very angry with the Government for having cut down the expenditure for the military establishment to a figure which, they say, can make only for hopeless inefficiency, "With every expert in the world saying that the next arena of war will be in the Pacific," one of them complains, "the Government has decided to cut down its military expenditure, because of the silly catch-cries of people Who vapored about the evils of military caste when it was plain that such a caste could not exist in a democratic atmosphere such as we have in New Zealand." But the real trouble is not the fear of the rise of a "military caste", but the exigencies of finance, which do not permit the Government to accept in their entirety any of the schemes of defence submitted by its military advisers It simply has to adjust its expenditure to the funds at its disposal.

CONAN DOYLE. Sir Conan Doyle's audience at his first lecture here on Saturday night was limited only by the holding capacity of the Town Hall. Of course the lecturer's reputation as a writer of delightful fiction would have won him a kindly reception in any English-speaking community, but a large part of his big audience was attracted by curiosity in regard to his exposition of the mysteries of .spiritualism. In this rospect he was a little disappointing to the sceptical, and even to those with the open mind that rather wanted U be convinced. There was, however, a very general feeling that Sir Conan Doyle himself was perfectly sincere in his'beliefs, that he was attempting no disguise, and that he was entirely free from the arts of the charlatan Orthodox people, of course, are both shocked and grieved that the famous novelist should bo devoting his talents to such a purpose, but even they are comforted by his reverent I treatment of sacred subjects. J