THE NEW ZEALAND ARBITRATION ACT.
[To TBZ EDITOR Or TER "SPNCTATOIC] SIR,—" The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act" of New Zealand may be fairly considered to be "committed for trial," or, in fact, as having had a fair trial before the tribunal of public opinion here, and I take the liberty of summing up for the benefit of your English readers the evidence—as to the beneficence or otherwise of its operations—as far as it has gone. First of all, it would be as well to state that the administrators of the Act are primarily a so-called " Board of Conciliation," with a President appointed by the Government of the day, and composed of two appointees of the employers on the one side and two representatives of the employed on the other; and, secondarily, a Court of Arbitration presided over by a Supreme Court Judge having for colleagues one representative of the employers and one of the men, and with the right of calling in unlimited technical assistance. The Court of Arbitration under the present Act is, however, merely a Court of Appeal. From May, ]896, to December, 1898, thirty disputes came before the " Boards of Concilia- tion" throughout the Colony. Their judgment was accepted in ten of these cases, but twenty were appealed against, and the issues had to be tried all over again by the Court of Arbitration,—naturally a very harassing and expensive pro- cess. I have watched the operation of this industrial litiga- tion with great interest, and I hope you will allow me to report the result of my observations. The first con- clusion one arrives at is that though conciliation and arbitration are better than strikes—and for this reason the New Zealand Act is a desirable and beneficial measure as far as it goes—it is possible to have too much of a good thing. That the present Act is provocative of the litigious instinct amongst our workmen is a regrettable fact. That advantage is taken of it by workmen to unnecessarily harass employers seems, in my experience, undoubted. That employers are unduly irritable and sensitive under its opera- tions must, alas! in justice, be remarked. Thus it is that the proceedings of what may be called the "Lower Court "— " the Board of Conciliation "—are often marred by "scenes," and by the use of violent language in which the tie vogue argu- ment figures conspicuously. It is on these occasions that the contending parties come face to face for the first time, and it is perhaps not unnatural that the Board meetings should be the mediums of blunting, by abrupt contact, the sharp edges of bitterness. This aspect of affairs loses no whit of poignancy by the fact that the representatives of either side are almost invariably chosen because of a glibness of tongue acquired in the conduct of the very controversies which have brought about the climaxes of dispute ; and it is emphasised when the President is a weakling, and the judgment of members of the Board is marked and marred by personal antipathies and class resentments. This element was par- ticularly noticeable in connection with an iron-moulders' dispute which recently came before the Board at Wellington, the capital of the Colony. In this case the employers were brought before the Board, without previous notification, by a few discontented employes ; the majority of their men (ac- cording to the evidence) having had no cause of complaint, either in regard to the hours worked or the wages paid. Not unnaturally they were indign ant, and the language need in some of the verbal encounters was so undignified as to be characterised as "reprehensible" by the local Press. The Boardsmen by no means allowed the advocates to excel in the art of recrimination, and in one instance a member of the Board, watching the case on behalf of the employers, threatened to "throw out" a fellow-member of the opposite persuasion who had annoyed him by persistent inter. ruption. The fact that the members of the Board are paid one guinea each per diem is a sore point with the employers, who are obliged to leave their factories day after day without recompense, and this has led on more than one occasion to the suggestion that cases are worked up in the trades halls (from which the employes' representatives on the Boards are usually drawn) for the purpose of bringing grist to certain mills. Such insinuations lose no weight when such cases as the moulders' dispute referred to are under review. On the other band, it has to be remembered that, notwithstanding they were responsible for every case which has been brought before the Boards and Court, the verdict in the great majority of the cases (I say this confidently, although I have not the exact figures by me) has been in favour of the men as against the employers ; although in no one case have the employ4s obtained everything for which they have contended. The fact that by defective draughtsmanship or legislative blundering the Conciliation Board has been left without any power of enforcing its awards, has no doubt aggravated dis- putants and provoked appeals. I regret that I have been unable to obtain any figures to show the cost of administering the Act, but it must amount to a very considerable sum per annum, even though the lawyers have not been allowed to insinuate themselves into the proceedings of either Board or Court. The conclusion I have arrived at, after a clreful con- sideration of the question, is that compulsory arbitration is justified by results, but that compulsory conciliation is a misnomer and a farce. If I bad my way I would sweep the garrulous, babbling, injudicious, unjudicial, inconsequential " Board of Conciliation" away altogether, and rely alone for the settlement of all industrial disputes upon the Arbitration Court, which, presided over by a Judge secur- ing dignity, and consisting of and advised by experts ensuring a right understanding and equitable dealing, could not fail to have the confidence of the whole community. With the contention that the "loser should pay" in disputes of this kind, I am, as the result of observation of the opera- tions of the Act, out of sympathy. To make an employer, against whom the judgment of a Court has gone, pay all the expenses besides assuming the additional financial responsi- bilities which a verdict in favour of his men, say for higher wages, would entail, would practically mean crippling or destroying the industry. On the other hand, to make the Trade-Unions pay the expenses of a lost cause would so harass them financially as to prevent them coming before the Court on a future occasion to prosecute a right and reason-
Wellington, New Zealand, January 21st.
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