IS IT DEAD?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10134, 7 December 1910, Page 4

IS IT DEAD?

A speaker at the ' meeting in Masterton on Monday night alleged that the Arbitration Court was as "dead as Julius Caesar. This is a very serious assertion to come from a leading spirit among the workers. The awards which hare recently been made in the shearers' and other disputes gives an absolute contradiction to the statement. Evidence is not wanting, however, to show that the arbitration system, even hi isew Zealand,. has broken' 1 down. From the very day that'the miners of the West Coast flouted the award of the Court, the influence of this tribunal was doomed. No system of arbitration can be maintained unless effective means are adopted for securing respect of the awards made. Under the existing law, such means are impossible. The workers are out to extinguish the system of arbitration, because they can no longer use it lor their own purpose. The time is not far distant when justice, as it is understood in arbitration, will be superseded by coercion. It behoves employers of labour, and true friends of industrial peace, to devise soma rational method of checkmating the advances of those extremists who are the seeds of industrial revolution.