OCR Text |
Show Compulsory Arbitration. THE system of compulsory arbitration arbitra-tion of labor troubles in New Zealand continues to the satisfaction satisfac-tion of all concerned. For a num- j ber of years that commonwealth has had on Its statute books an act entitled en-titled "The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Law." Under this law, saya the Rocky Mountain News, when a compromise wag found to be impossible, im-possible, compulsory arbitration .was authorized. The New Zealand parliament parlia-ment recently strengthened the law by curtailing the power of the conciliation concilia-tion court, and making the direct appeal ap-peal to compulsory arbitration easier to obtain. This would seem to Indicate Indi-cate that the New Zealand people are well satisfied with the general workings work-ings of the compulsory principle. Recently Re-cently New South Wales sent a commission com-mission to study the practical effects of this law. The report stated that while the act had some serious defects, de-fects, which were set forth at length, "the result of my observation is," said the commlssHner, "that the act has so far, notwithstanding its faults, been productive of good." The report continued: ' The act has prevented strikes of ' any magnitude, and Has, on the whole, brought about a better relation between be-tween employers and employes than would exist if there were no act. It has enabled the increase of wages and other conditions favorable to the workmen which, under the circumstances cir-cumstances of the colony, they are entitled en-titled to, to be settled without friction and bitterness of feeling which otherwise oth-erwise might have existed; it has enabled en-abled employers, for . a time at least, to know with certainty the conditions of production, and therefore to make contracts with the knowledge that they would be able to fulfill them; and, indirectly, it has tended to a more harmonious feel ing among the people generally, which must have worked for the weal of the colony. A very large majority of the employers of labor la-bor whom I Interviewed are In favor of the principle of the act. As a result of the report by its commissioner, com-missioner, New South Wales has enacted enact-ed a law from which the conciliation court feature was omitted, the sole power of settling labor disputes was placed in a court of arbitration, and strikes and lockouts were made penal offenses. ' |