SPIRIT OF UNITY.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 66, 18 March 1919, Page 5

SPIRIT OF UNITY.

WORKER AND EMPLOYER. REVALUING HUMAN EXTORT. 9 AN INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL, (Received 0.30 a.m.) LOXDOX, March 17. Mr Robert Home (Minister for Labour) was the guest of the Akhvicli Club at dinner to-night, and in the course of a speech he stated that Labour troubles were not entirely the result of the war. Demands for shorter hours, profit -sharing: and so..;e control over conditions of work could not be neglected longer. The war had given the general community a clearer perception of the nierits of these demands. Xo enlightened man wished to return to pre-war conditions, some of which were intolerable. There mast be a re-valuation of human effort, and employers must be prepared to meet their men in a new spirit. Unfortunately industrial negotiations in the past had been conducted at arms length, each side being unwilling to trust the other. He hoped that the new spirit would evolve a scheme whereby employers and workmen in oacli industry would sit at the same table and arrive at decisions in their common interest. The sub-committee of the Industrial Conference was drawing up a proposal for the creation of an Industrial Council. France possessed such a Council, composed of thirty-one representatives of employers, thirty-one of workers, three Senators, three Deputies, three professors of economics and law. and three representatives of the Chambers of Commerce and the trade unions. This supreme Labour Council held a fortnight's session annually and discussed great industrial issues. There was also a subsidiary permanent commission composed of seventeen members, which investigated all Labour disputes as they arose, and reported conditions and hours of labour in various industries, which Parliament instructea them to investigate.

This mechanism was extremely valuable and efficacious. The Suprcni" Labour Council .had instituted practically all Labour legislation passed in France in recent years. He did not desire a precisely similir Council, but France's experience was useful in formulating a British Council. The Peace Conference was considering the draft convention for the creation of an International Labour Conference, meeting annu.iily, each country sending four delegates, of whom the Government would nominate two, employers one, and the workers one. The Labour Conference's decisions would be referred to the respective Parliaments for enactment. The Convention also provides for a permanent Industrial Labour Bureau, to collect information in all countries and report to the Labour Conference. — (A. and N.Z.)