THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1908. THE GOVERNMENT AND ARBITRATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9175, 26 August 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1908. THE GOVERNMENT AND ARBITRATION.

The Government may well exclaim, "Save us from the Arbitration Court," for although the Ministerial organ in Wellington may highly approve of the Court's indecision, no, lack of decision; no that won't do—well, let us say of the total absence of a decision in the farm labourers' dispute in Canterbury, the great majority of the people in the Dominion are the reverse of pleased. Section 80 of the principal Act may Hay that "The Court shall in all matters before it have full and exclusive jurisdiction to determine the same in such manner in all respects as in equity and good conscience it thinks fit," but it is surely stretching a point to contend that the quote;! clause gives the Court power to refuse to make an award in regard to a wide spread and strongly established industry? The determining of a dispute one would think would be the settling of a dispute, and the manner of settlement would be by an award. Certainly it seems impossible "to determine" a dispute by declining to have anything to do with if. However, the Arbitration Court has made matters interesting for the Government The Government have not evinced any keen desire to deal with

arbitration matters, but it now appears that they will have "to face the country" on the question at the next general election. But after all, perhaps, it is the Government who should really be blamed for the so-called "break down" of the Act. Every person of ordinary intelligence, who ever gave the matter a thought, has always seen that the Act would be properly tested whenever there was a lull in our prosperity, and that, if the Act really possessed any genuine value, it | would be perceived in a time of depression. Well, the point is this, if the Gjvernment had been really economical and progressive for the past twelve years, would there be in thib country to-day a condition of even temporary depression. We think not. The Arbitration Court has not proved a perfect institution, but it has done an enormous amount of work, and a good deal of it has been done well. Can the same be said for the Government? Would it not be truthful to say that the Government has passed a tremendous amount of legislation, and expended enormous sums of money, with the result that the people are groaning to-day under the weight of the burdens imposed upon them—burdens, let it be observed, which they were solemnly assured would prove to be blessings, and burdens, let it be further remanded, which would have proved to be blessings under proper administration. The progress of development in the Wairarapa district is a splendid example of how valuable our progressive Government has been to the Dominion. Sir Joseph Ward and others have boasted that now, not as formerly, "all our eggs are not in one basket," but as a matter of fact they are just about as much in one basket as ever they were. The Government have had any number of opportunities, and any amount of mo iey to advance most substantially the real interests of the country, and what have they done in comparison with what they might have accomplished?