COMPULSORY ARBITRATION.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin.,—Before accepting as an argument for compulsory arbitration the assumption that it works well in New Zealand (Spectator, December 31st), it would be desirable to ascertain what educated New Zealand opinion says on the matter. I regret to have recently destroyed a New Zealand paper con- taining an able and temperate protest against this assump- tion, but I recall the substance of the article clearly. To force men to keep their manufactories open at a disadvantage, urged the writer I would paraphrase, is just as disastrous to commercial prosperity here as anywhere else. But in a purely agricultural country it is possible to ignore the disaster. It is a very trifling matter to us that our manu- factures should deoline,—a misfortune as far as it goes, but not a kind of misfortune that, in four years at all events, tells as a national calamity. Let England follow our example, and she will find that the experiment which we can afford to make without obvious disaster will mean for her the loss of her place as a commercial Power of the first rank. I regret much that I have to give you the protest in my feeble para. phrase, instead of the vigorous words which would have cam.
pelled attention.—I am, Sir, &c., NEMO.
Previous page
