THE ARBITRATION ACT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 20 May 1913, Page 4

THE ARBITRATION ACT.

We have it on the authority of the Prime Minister that several more or less important amendments to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act are to be biWght down in the coining session of Parliament. These will afford the Legislature an opportunity of reviewing the whole operation, of the arbitration system during the last couple of decades. The Ministry does not seein disposed, at this juncture, to wipe the whole cumbrous and disjointed thing off Statute Book, and relieve industry of the millstone that is hanging about its neck. There should, however, be a sufficient number of public-spirited and independent men in the House to clip the wings of Unionism', and make the law less irksome than it is at present. In the first place, it should be made impossible for a small section of workers to drag a whole trade into a dispute without a ballot being taken of the workers affected. The penalising of non-unionists should be prohibited, and there should be no such thing as a preference against men who wish to retain their independence. Paid agitators on either side should be repressed, and tne definition of a "strike" should be more clearly de-

fined. Parliament will ho failing in its duty if it allows tho terrorising methods of a small section of the Labourites to continue.