Page:Life·of·Seddon•James·Drummond•1907.pdf/280

 should be encouraged. When the Bill was dealt with in committee in the Council, members went further. By seventeen votes to eleven, they inserted a clause setting forth that it was not lawful for the Court, by any award, to order that members of a Trades Union should be employed in preference to non-members, or to fix any age for the commencement or termination of apprenticeship.

In due course, the amending Bill came before the House of Representatives, which, by twenty-six votes to thirty-eight, rejected the clause. Otherwise, it accepted the Council’s amendments, together with the alteration of the title.

On the Bill being sent back to the Council, that body dissented from the decision of the House in rejecting the clause, and it drew up the following “Reasons”:—

(1) That the fact that both branches of the Legislature have agreed to amend the title of the Act of 1894 shows that the Act was intended to make provision for the settlement of disputes, and not for the purpose of enabling unionists to obtain preferential right of employment.

(2) That unionists form only a small proportion of the workers of the colony, and it would be unjust to those outside the unions that the Court should have this power.

(3) That the unions are trying to get the Court to fix a minimum age of apprenticeship, and it is desirable to declare that it was not the intention of the Legislature that the Court should have the power to fix a minimum age.

Managers appointed by both branches were unable to come to an agreement, but fresh ones, later on, agreed that the words “making it unlawful for the Court to order that members of a Trades Union must be employed in preference to non-members” should be struck out, and that the remainder of the clause should be retained. In that form, the Bill was adopted. Reference to the encouragement of unions was struck out of the title, but no direction was given to the Court that it should not give preference to unionists in making its awards. The Court, therefore, has pursued its original course, and has continued to grant unionists preference where it thought they deserved the privilege.

In several cases preference has been refused. In the North of Auckland timber-workers’ dispute, it was refused on the ground that it was impracticable, owing to the sawmills being