FARMERS AND THE ARBITRATION ACT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9103, 1 June 1908, Page 4

FARMERS AND THE ARBITRATION ACT.

At the annual conference of the North Canterbury District branches of the New Zealand Farmers' Union on Thursday last, the delegates spent a considerable amount of time in discussing matters connected "'ith (he Arbitration laws of the Dominion as applied to the farming community. One delegate moved "that this conference considers that, as strikes are practically impossible on farms, the farming industry should be exempt from the Arbitration Act." It is somewhat difficult to understand why the farming community should be exempt from the operation of the Act. As long as the Act is on the Statute Book it would not be right, wise or logical, for any Union to ask that any section of the community should be exempt from its operation. Farm labourers have every right to combine in support of their demands for adequate remuneration for their work, and to secure conditions that are fair and sanitary. It is no more impossible for strikes to occur on farms than .in any other industry—in fact only recently there was a strike on a big farm in the Canterbury province. Of course pome difficulty would be experienced in regulating the hours of labour on a farm, but there is no reason why this should not be overcome, and a farm worked under an award of the Arbitration Court. The motion referred to above was eventually amended in the direction that it should be a recommendation from the Conference to the Government urging that the farming industry should be exempt from the operation of the Arbitration Act.