CONCILIATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8473, 26 June 1907, Page 5

CONCILIATION.

Interviewed in Dunedin by a Star representative, Mr Arnold, M.H.R., who has just returned from Sydney, said it was quite evident that some amendment must be made to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. Of course, not knowing the mind of the Minister, he could not say whether his proposals for the creation of Wages Boards would be acceptable or not, but it must be admitted by those who had taken an interest in the subject that we had got away from the first intention of the Act, which was conciliation, whereas at the present time there was practically no conciliation, and arbitration wad not tending to harmony between employer and employee. He was quite satisfied from the large amount of experience he had had, both previous to going into Parliament and since, that it was only by open conversation across the table that good feeling and satisfactory conclusions could be come to. In any case, it was to the interest not only of the workers and employers, but to the whole colony, to see that the old system of warfare, namely, the strike, which proved so disastrous to all concerned, was not made easy in this colony. Personally, the amount of poverty and suffering that he had seen in Victoria during the past few weeks had renewed and increased his abhorence of that mode of warfare.