§ Major PRESCOTTasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the fact that some municipalities have ignored the representations of the Board to reconsider the remuneration paid to their officials or to have the differences adjusted by arbitration, he will consider the expediency of initiating legislation to set up an Arbitration Court to which local government officers can submit questions relating to salaries or war bonuses in all cases where they are dissatisfied, and where recalcitrant authorities resist the overtures of the Local Government Board?
§ Dr. ADDISONNot many cases have been brought to the notice of the Ministry of Labour in which local authorities have refused to grant war bonuses according to the Civil Service scale recommended to them by the Local Government Board, or alternatively to submit the matter to arbitration.
There have been cases in which the authority's agreement to arbitration was not given until the Ministry of Labour had communicated with them. The intervention of the Ministry and of the Local Government Board has been sufficient to secure the consent of the local authorities to arbitration in almost every case. The situation, therefore, is hardly such as to warrant special legislation.