The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 31, 1921. SETTLING INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1921, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 31, 1921. SETTLING INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES.

Although the settlement of the miners’ strike in the Motherland presents certain distinctive features, yet the principles involved are common to all industrial disputes, and are therefore of much importance to the employers and employed the world over. Practically the crux of the matter is the relation of wages to profits, but inasmuch as, so far as concerns colliery work, the cost of production varies according to the ease or difficulty of obtaining the production, a complication arises as to how wages are to be equalised on an output basis. Manifestly, if wages are to be equalised, though at one mine it takes twice the labor and time to produce a ton of coal than it does at another mine, either the output of the difficult mine must be sold at a higher price to enable payment to be made to the miners equal to that received, by the men at the easily worked mines,or some scheme must be devised to adjust the difference. It is inconceivable that those who are earning high wages at an easy working mine would consent to a reduction that would place their earnings on a par with those of tile men at the difficult mines. It is equally inconceivable that the employers would be willing to carry on at a loss in order that the workers should be paid at a higher rate per ton than the coal; is worth on the market, hence the difficulty of solving the problem. The miners have insisted on the establishment of a national wages pool, but that, for obvious reasons, has been decide,dly refused. The production of coal being the key industry, the British Government has formulated a proposal for a temporary settlement based upon the creation of a fund consisting of ten millions sterling contributed by the Treasury and an amount to be sacrificed by the owners out of standard profits for three months as will make up the difference between the economic wages the mines are able to pay and the actual wages fixed. This scheme, however, depends entirely on the miners agreeing to a permaent. settlement of one of three methods: (a) The establishment of a national wages board; (b) a tribunal of three persons; or (e) arbitration. The object of each and all these tribunals is to fix the rates of wages based on the industry’s capacity in each district, so as to ensure subsistence to the lowest-paid workers, also for increasing the output, and determining the minimum standard wage, as well as the proportion of profits to wages. Unless this scheme for permanent settlement is adopted, the Government will not only decline to provide a sixpence towards a s.ubsidy, but Parliament will be asked immediately to legislate in the direction of * compulsory arbitration- As the

position stands at present, the miners are being offered a direct incentive to resume work pe. .ring a permanent settlement. | If they are wise they ought not to hesitate over accepting such an offer,

especially in view of the alternative. Their leaders say that something more tangible is required, so that apparently they favor losing the substance while grasping at the Shadow. The Government and the nation are keenly anxious to give the miners a square deal, and by the exercise of a grain of common sense the men should realise this and act accordingly. Harsh repressive measures only provoke evil consequences. Better far for the main body of the work ers to protect themselves from pernicious influences by means of effective machinery for settling disputes, than by being led astray through the plausible maehina tions of dangerous wreckers Of industrial peace.