technicalities, and reduced chaotic disputes into compact cases, which could be grasped by the Court without the expenditure of much time and trouble.
No Board dared to refuse to hear any witness brought forward, for fear of laying itself open to a charge of being prejudiced against one side. In some cases, between 50 and 60 witnesses were called before Boards, the evidence of one duplicating that of another. When these cases were taken from the Boards to the Court, the numbers of witnesses were reduced to six or seven, whose evidence had been shown by the proceedings before the Boards to be important and essential. By means of the Boards, the Court was sometimes able to settle in an hour a case to which it now has to give days.
The proceedings of the Board have often been watched with close attention by men who have come to New Zealand to inquire into the working of the Act. A brief sketch of these proceedings will be interesting.
When a dispute has been referred to a Board, the Clerk of Awards for the district appoints a time for the hearing. Up to the present time, nearly all the citations have come from the workers. The union submits a statement of claim. In most cases the claim contains four prominent items, namely, wages, hours of labour, rate of overtime pay, and the proportion of apprentices that should be allowed to the number of journeymen. There are generally many minor points of difference, arising from the nature of the particular business carried on; but these are the items that evoke most discussion. In their general character, all statements of claim are very similar.
The leading delegate of the workers explains the position from the union’s point of view, and urges reasons for granting the men’s demands. He deals with the statement item by item. In touching on wages, he shows, sometimes by elaborate sets of figures, that the colony is prosperous, that the industry is flourishing, or at any rate, is in a better position than it was some years previously, and that the employers are able to pay higher wages than the existing rate. The hardships of the men are described, and if the trade is a dangerous one that fact is pointed out. The evils of boy labour are depicted. A plea
