THE Wairarapa Age TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1908. NEARING THE END.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9129, 30 June 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1908. NEARING THE END.

The bakers' employees within a certain (radius in Wellington have struck not so much for more wages but really for more equitable conditions of employment. Possibly "equitable" is a wrong word to use, more reasonable, more humane conditions are really what the employees want. Are employers disinclined to grant the conditions demanded? By way of general answer we should »ay "no" but why do they refuse? Simply because they have been goaded and

harassed and embarrassed by Unionism, and because the Arbitration Court has ever been held out to them as a dreadful "bogey," instead of as an institution to which they might ook for justice and industrial peace. It is urged in some quarters that as the Arbitration Court was instituted to prevent strikes, and as strikes have occurred since therefore the Act should be repealed. Our own opinion of the Act is this, that the farcical Conciliation Boards should, in the taxpayer's interest, be done away with, that the Arbitration Court, as at present constituted, should be subjected to a similar indignity, and that in the place of the Arbitration Court there should be instituted wages boards with the powers that the Court now enjoys, but of very different personnel. |lt would be absurd fjr tinkers to sit on printers' disputes. In plain language what on earth do tinkers know about printing? It would be equally absurd for saddlers to adjudicate upon the intricacies of the plumbing trade. But this is practically what is occurring 1 every day! The fact that the Act provides for a lawyer to sit at the head of affairs is calculated to confuse rather than elucidate disputes. Wages boards composed of practical men who know what they are about is what is required. Employers are not inhuman or unreasonable, or born cheats, as a genaral rule. No doubt there are "black sheep" amongst the employers just the same as there are indisputably "bad lots" amongst employees, but the exceptions on both sides go to show that the main body in each case consists of ordinary decent human beings. The man who viciously endeavours, for the sake of personal gain, to stir up strife between employer and employee should be dealt with firmly, and not allowed the option of a fine! All our labour troubles would speedily disappear with com-mon-sense legislation and administration, but while the Government continues to pander to Labour without rhyme or reason it may expect neither the peace nor the success that its actions in the past have brought. It is patent at last to employeea as it has always been to the great majority of employers that the Government's system for dealing with industrial disputes is rotten. Labour at last realises the rottenness 1 of the Government in Labour matters. This is very significant and important, and w« await future events with interest.