SHORTER WEEK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 13

SHORTER WEEK.

ATTITUDE OF EMPLOYERS. TWO CLASSES OF WORKERS. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Friday. A statement was made to-day by Mr. T. O. Bishop, secretary of the Employers' Federation, in regard to the proposals of the Alliance of Labour, as submitted to the Minister of Labour, the Hon. A. Hamilton, to increase wages and reduce hours.

Mr. Bishop stated that in New Zealand there were two classes of workers, tlioee living by production from the land and those by other forms of production. The wages of those living by production from the land were determined by the prices of products overseas, and until an arbitrary fixation of wages could be made, to apply to all sections of producers, such method of solving present difficulties must be ruled out.

The adoption of a shorter week could come about only by agreement of at least the principal industrial countries. The only hope of such agreement appeared to lie in the work of the International Labour Office at Geneva. As New Zealand had the largest per capita external trade in the world, she was less able than any other country to initiate such a change.