SHORTER HOURS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 74, 29 March 1933, Page 9

SHORTER HOURS.

SPREADING OF WORK.

REMEDY FOR DEPRESSION.

HE. BLOODWOETH'S VIEWS.

The question of a reduction in working hours as a part solution of the depression was considered by Mr. T. Bloodworth this afternoon in an address at a luncheon of the Auckland Creditmen's Club held in • the reception hall of Messrs. Milne and Choyce.

A remit embodying the suggestion would be brought before the International Labour Conference, to be held at Geneva in June, the speaker said. Ho spoke of the crisis as it affected unemployment. In the industrial world there were more than 30,000,000 out of work. It was safe to say that the purchasing power of that number that been reduced by at least 50 per cent. It was argued, he said, that the one way for countries to reduce unemployment was to extend their markets; but all wanted to be sellers and nobody to be a buyer. "All are cursed with surpluses," he said. Theoretically, scientific . progress ultimately created as much employment as it destroyed, ibut suck an ideal condition presupposed perfectly free markets and complete mobility of capital and labour.

The remedy, said Mr. Bloodworth, lay in the wider distribution of leisure, to cultivate the art of consumption and the art of intelligent living. Shorter hours were an essential part of longrange social planning, and were a-social as well as an economic proposition.

The wise use of leisure was a product of civilisation and education. "Modern methods of production have given the possibility of ease and security for all," he concluded. "We have chosen to have overwork for some and starvation for others. We have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines. In that we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever, and the presence of 30 million unemployed in the world calls on us to mend our ways."