CARTOON - UNDER WHICH SCALE

Paper & pencil cartoon. Depicts the image of a female in flowing robes with a blindfold and holding up a set of scales with [ARBITRATION] written on it. The figure is lifting her blindfold to look at the scales. Hands emerging from the clouds in the background are placing rolled up sheets of paper into the scales. The left hand has [FEDERAL AWARD] written on it and the right hand has [STATE AWARD] written on it. The female figure is standing in a pile of rolled up papers. Written across the pile of paper scrolls is [INDUSTRIAL / DISPUTES]. In front of her is a man in a suit and a bowler hat, with [EMPLOYER] written on a band, and another man in work clothes holding a shovel. Written on his shirt collar is [EMPLOYEE]
The cartoon was published in the Western Mail on 15 November 1923 and included the caption:
UNDER WHICH SCALE?
Mr. R.O. Law, president of the W.A. Employers’ Federation, in his annual address to members, dealt at great length with the question of arbitration. He said if arbitration is to be effective it must be applied expeditiously, and parties who are subject to the Act should be able to approach the Court without delay and have their troubles settled. The old difficulty which employers in this and other States have had to meet in endeavouring to work under dual authority, such as is created by the jurisdiction of Federal and State industrial tribunals in the same sphere, has become accentuated recently by the actions of the Federal Court, in one or two marked instances, of prescribing in awards rates of wages fixed on bases which relate to other parts of Australia, to the exclusion of bases which particularly concern Western Australia. - (News Item.)