Thanks to our methods of recording industrial disputes, it would appear that Australia is always in a state of labour upheaval, and this fact is enlarged upon by the enemies of the Government, as being its fault, and by the opponents of compulsory arbitration as being the result of that system. Thus, in 1921, there were reported 624 disputes, but of these 477 were settled without the intervention of either Commonwealth or State courts, and by the process of negotiation. What is of more importance is the fact that of the 62 disputes 332 lasted for not more than one day and 177 for more than one day, bub less than a week. So we had only 115 disputes which lasted one week Th or more. The disputes which lasted four weeks or more numbered only 27, and the number of workpeople involved wae 15,035 out-of the total for all disputes of 165,101. In the face of such figures as these, optimism concerning the continuance of industria] peace may be more easily understood. The shearing strike is said to involve some 40,000 men, but there has been no serious difficulty in getting men into the sheds, and to-day there is no pretence that the strike has nob petered out, and that the men themselves are willingly accepting, despite their leaders the award laid down by the Federal Arbitration Court reducing the previous high rate of wages of £2 to £1 10s. per 100.
The courts have mostly abolished the 44hour week granted to a made that certain unions, and, though all sorts of threats were never would the increase be submitted to, the man are for the most part working admirably. Hardly a dav passes but one reads of closed factories re-opening, of the abandonment of "go slow" and other methods of sabotage advised by the high sounding Council of Action in Sydney. The New South Wales coal-miners were on the verge of revolution, at least 50 we were told, and now the pits are re-opening, the strike of the day a week has been abandoned, and owners have only to threaten to close down and the irreconcilables suddenly become reconcile ables. There seems little question that the maintenance of industrial peace has been so extolled that has created disputes, but so long og there is a faith amongst the workers in direct action so long must there also he.some power behind the scenes to bring them before the industrial courts and place them either beneath or outside the mantle of the lay. The Labour Party wishes ta widen arbitration at. the expense of conciliation, the Country Party seeks to have conciliation only, while the Nationalists want to exhaust all methods of mutual] agreement, before the compulsory provisions of the Arbitration Law.are brought into force. It should be added that, of the 624 disputes recorded last year, no fewer than 535 occurred in New South Wales. and of these 499 were in connexion with the coal-mining industry. The leaders of the Labour-Federation in this industry have for a long time been preaching extreme views, and advocating the final ownership of the mines by the men working in them. Yet the value of the output of coal in 1921 far exceeded all previous records, and is nearly three times what it was before the War.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.