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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 81

Mr Reeves' Testimony

Mr Reeves' Testimony.

But I further contend that the Act wa6 designed in part to prevent sweating and not to prevent strikes alone. I quoted from perhaps the best authority I could get, the framer of the Act himself, to support my contention. I need not do more now than give a further, and I think, conclusive proof. In giving a full account of the origin and purpose of our Arbitration Act, of which Mr Reeves was the framer, he says on 70 pages of his work on State experiments in Australa and New Zealand. "These (the critics of the Act) write of it as if its page 3 sole function was to deal with the militant, highly organised bodies of comabatants with strikers or those able to Strike). "Far from being confined to this, much of its (i.e., the Arbitration Act's) best and most humane work is done in improving the condition of sweated workers, too poor and too weak to give battle in the ordinary fashion of industrial warfare (i.e., by strikes). It is the best hope of the woman worker for whom Trades Unionism hsa done so little." I repeat then, that the act has served, and was intended to serve the double purpose of sweating and strike prevention—purposes very far indeed from being identical.

I contended that the Act had for many years prevented strikes, and that if reasonably used in the spirit intended bv its framer, it would always prevent them. This contention has been adversely criticised. I am not going to repeat the proofs I gave, but submit these considerations to unbiased critics:—
(a)There were in 1906, 290,000 wage earners of all kinds in New Zealand, and the average number throughout the whole career of the Act would be over 250,000.
(b)Up to the present time there have been