The influence of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court has been Shoven in a peculiar way lately. Tt will be remembered that Melbourne a tramway strike, which st resulted ina number of mew motorbuses, which being faster and more convenient to enter at the Kerbside, stead "of in the. middle of the rects, are cutting seriously into the tramway service. The men. would not go back to work, because it would appear as if they had "climbed down." Mr. Justice Powers, Pre-Sident of the Arbitration Court, ladered them back to work and they went joyfully declaring, like Gilbert's Rev. Hopley Porter, that For days they'd onned for some For this woos Nge'ihat ette Red seme Fay dealt on comple OF course itis explained that they fad to obey the Cour, lest perchance their union be desopistered, which would mean that the employers Ywould "no longer' be bound to pay axes according to award." Fellow ug immediately upon this came the matter of a number of coastal steamers, as mentioned in my last which were hung up, crews refusing to offer until the company had pald up.a claim for a man's "bruised thumb, Mr, Justice Powers ordered these men back, and they also promptly theyed, and the steamers are Tun ing again, In each eave tt is probable that the men acted unthinkingly Gheying. the orders of their union oficlals, "Certainly in neither case were they given the opportunity of taking a secret ballot as to whether fr no they should leave work, but for all that the Arbitration Court early has its uses, if only as 8 teans of retreat for the men from an unjustifiable and hopeless posi-ton.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.