LABOUR CONFERENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 248, 19 October 1922, Page 5

LABOUR CONFERENCE.

INTERNATIONAL GATHERING. OPENED AT GENEVA. (Received 11 a.m.) GENEVA, October 18.y The fourth session of the International labour organisation of the League of Nations opened here to-day under the presidency of Viscount Burnham.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.)

This is Viscount Burnham's second term as President of the International Labour Conference, last year's discussions having also been held under his control, 'flic position of chairman of an international conference is always one of great difficulty. International* methods and procedure vary enormously, and the International Labour Oilice 'is not yet old enough to have worked out in adequate detail its own methods. Moreover, the International Liibour Conference of the league of Nations is organised on quite novel lines. Employees' and workers' representatives attend side by side with Government representtatives in the proportion of t\v o Uovcrnment delegates to one employers' and one workers' delegate from each country.

The agenda for the present comprises the revision of part XIII. of the Treaty of Versailles, (a) -with a view to the reform of the constitution of the governing body of the International Labour Office, so as to allow greater representation to 'be given in its deliberations to non-European States; (l>) with a view to modification as regards periodicity of the session of the conference. As is well known, these Labour Conferences pass conventions which have to be placed 'before the Parliaments of all the fifty-four countries belonging to the organisation for ratilication or decision. Owing to the great number of conventions passed by the last three conferences, the Parliaments have been somewhat overloaded, and decisions have in certain cases not been arrived at within the time limit laid down by the Treaty. The conference will examine if this difficulty can be overcome by changing the periodicity of its cessions.

Tho second item on the agenda relates to the communication to the International Labour Office of statistical and other information regarding emigration and immigration and the repatriation and transport of emigrants. Lord UHeswater, former Speaker of the House of Commons, presided at an International Immigration Commission convened by the International Labour Office last year

to deal with the many-sided problem of emigration—from the point of view of emigration and immigration countries. The problem of collecting statistics and information on this eivbjpct does not appear very exciting, but it is the first step towards bringing about international co-operation.

A long debate on the question of unemployment is sure to arise upon tm> presentation of the exhaustive report on unemployment throughout the world, which is now 'being prepared by the International Labour Office «t the request of the last International Labour Conference artd the recent International Economic Conference - of Genoa.