University Debaters' Annual Volume 7 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 Excerpt: ...you that the law had not been a success in Australia. Something like 6 per cent of the disputes that were submitted to that court resulted in strikes. During the war when labor was hard pressed; when the prices of food and clothing were going up and wages remained static, we had something like seventeen hundred disputes brought to the War Labor Board, and we had less than one-half of one per cent that amounted to even a threat of a strike. There you have a direct comparison between the results attained by the method that we are using in the United States and those secured under the labor code of Australia. Permit me to come back now to the interpretation of this question. Our first speaker pointed out that the question called for a debate on the prohibition of the strike under existing and not under ideal conditions; for a debate on the prohibition of the strike and not for a debate on the question of the adoption of any system of industrial courts which the Affirmative might devise. We however consented to debate with the gentlemen on their interpretation of the question, provided that they would meet us on our interpretation of the question, leaving you, Honorable Judges to decide which was the correct interpretation; and then to decide who had won the debate on that interpretation. Now we have debated the gentlemen on their interpretation and we are entitled to a debate on our interpretation, in turn. The reason that we have not kept our interpretation constantly before you during the whole of this debate is that we intended to show you out of the gentlemen's own mouths that ours was the correct interpretation; and this I will now do. In the first place they admit to you that they are going to set up a court similar to the Interstate Commerce Commission;...