37 



9. The Labour Enactment, 1911. 



The Secretary informs the meeting that at a meeting of the 

 Taiping Planters Association held on the 8th ultimo the following 

 resolution was passed: "That the Labour Enactment, 1911, be 

 cancelled or at least considerably modified." 



He explains that previous to this he had received notice of a 

 motion from Mr. Macfadyen on the same subject and had con- 

 st qutntjy plfxtd Mr. Macfc.d)tn's n:otkn on the Agenda 



Mr. E. Macfadyen, proposing " that this Association strongly 

 deprecates the precipitancy with which the Labourer's Enactment, 

 191 1, was passed through the Federal Council, said that for a law 

 conferring such wide and far reaching powers upon the executive, the 

 Labour Enactment, 1911, appears to have been passed after only the 

 most perfunctory deliberation. No one would suggest that Govern- 

 ment resorted to secrecy in order to faciliate its passage. We are 

 under no delusion as to the real powers of Government in regard to 

 legislation whatever fictions may be maintained about their 

 sharing such powers with Councils or Committees. There may be 

 limits to the powers of Government in administering some of their 

 laws; but in the making of them they are absolute. The burden of 

 my complaint is that Government has no moral right to pass a law 

 such as this, whatever its actual power, without giving members of 

 Council an opportunity to consider its nature and probable effects. 



The official apology for a degree of haste admitted to require 

 apology was that the law would only be applied in one instance. 

 Surely this is an aggravation rather than an extenuation of the 

 circumstances. If Government may take an employer into court 

 when they see their way to a conviction ; and when they did not, 

 may make a new law to meet his special case, it must be patent 

 that there ceases to be any guarantee for commercial enterprise at all. 

 The whole proceeding appears to be against any right principle. 

 This very instance might be so handled as to do infinite damage to 

 the reputation of our government for fair play; which is one of the 

 chief commercial assets of this country. 



I am not concerned to argue that the powers conferred should 

 not, in the peculiar conditions of the labour situtation here, be in 

 existence. My contention is that such powers ought not to be 

 exercised by government officers on the advice of other government 

 officers alone. To remove the labour force from an estate, by a 

 stroke of the pen, is to annihilate that estate as a profit-earning 

 concern; and I urge upon the members of Council to secure the 

 provision of adequate safeguards against the possible misuse of such 

 extreme powers. Whether the necessary safeguard should take the 

 form of a reference to the council itself or to a Committee of the 

 council or to somebody appointed ad hoc — is not for me to say : but 

 I do say emphatically that without such a reference, the perpetuation 

 of this enactment would be highly dangerous. If unofficial opinion 



