ARBITRATION AND STRIKES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 6 September 1913, Page 4

ARBITRATION AND STRIKES.

j' v. - f,' '' ■ . ■ It has frequently been contended in these columns that the time has arrived* when the workers of the Dominion should- settle all disputes, by arbitration, or tKat the Arbitration Court should be abolished, and a return made to freedom of contract. The Christchurch Press 5 apparently sees the matter in the same light, for it eajps:—

. ''The time is sure to come when the public aid Parliament will have strikes are to be permitted, compulsory arbitration should be retained, to' face the question whether, if Freedom from strikes may or may not be too dearly bought by the restrictions imposed upon full industrial development by compulsory arbitration ; but there can be no question that it is . absurd and! unwise to , pay the price arid then not obtain that for which the price is paid. It is as if a nation were to make a large sacrifice in order to obtain a secure Navy, and were to find its Navy utterly useless. It took.nearly fifteen years to discover that the Act's supposed, efficiency to secure industrial peace; „ was mythical ; it will'iot take the public fificeii° more years, we think, to realise the other injurious fallacies upon' which it rests."