A LEGISLATOR'S OPINION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 12 November 1913, Page 5

A LEGISLATOR'S OPINION.

HON JOHN RIGG INTERVIEWED

WELLINGTON, Last Night. The Hon. John Rigg, in an interview, said he considered the Government should endeavour to bring tho dispute back to what it was at its origin, and confine it to the Union Company and the shipwrights and and waterside workers. This could be done by the Government chartering, or if necessary taking possession of, such vessels as are required to carry on '/£ he ferry service between Wellington and Lyttelton, and between "Wellington and Sydney. If that were done, he believed arrangements could be made with tlie waterside workers by which the Home boats could be loaded by union labour, and thus the®produet of farmers could be slapped. If this method were adopted, the Union Company would soon use vt§ influence in such a way that the original terms offered by "the employers, refused by the Federation, afterwards accepted' by the Federation, and then withdrawn by the employers, .would be agreed to. It was not sufficient to settle strikes. They should be prevented. , That could be don© if it' were proved that the Coiirt of Arbitration could, in addition to fixing a minimum wage,, grant' the workers a share" in the pro-, fits, or something of that sort. This would the provisions of the Arbitration Act attractive to the unionists, who would come under the' Act in order to get' the benefits of such fx : :- system ; It would no longer be ne-v cessary to compel them to readier,: under the Act agtflnsl their will, ~ without the power to compel them to observe the provisions of tW Jijfr when they are registered. - ,