§ "For Sub-section 1 of Section 47 of the principal Act shall be substituted the following Sub-section:—'The parties to the arbitration are in this section deemed to be the owner, agent, or manager of the mine on the one hand and a majority of the workmen employed in the mine on the other.'"
§ He said that the Bill was intended to provide that certain rules should be made to carry out the Report of the Royal Commission. In the event of arbitration taking place in this matter, the workmen would not be parties to it. He contended that in the case of arbitration the workmen ought to be placed in the same position as the employers. Under the present, law the workmen had no power to initiate special rules, to object to special rules proposed by the Home Office, or to select an arbitrator, as the employers had. He thought the reason for the Amendment was sufficiently obvious, and he would not detain the House at length upon the subject.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY, Lancashire, Blackpool)said he hardly thought the hon. Member would expect him to agree to this Amendment. The parties to arbitration under the principal Act were the Secretary of State on the one side and the employer on the other side, and he did not think they could so alter the rule under the principal Act as to make the parties to the arbitration the owner and the workmen.
MR. JOHN WILSON (Durham)said he would like to induce the hon. Member to withdraw this Amendment, because it would eliminate from the arbitration the most important party to it. If the Amendment were accepted, the Inspector of Mines would be entirely eliminated from the arbitration courts, and the initiation would fall on the workmen.
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
735§ Clause 2,—