FOREIGN VIEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 136, 10 June 1936, Page 7

FOREIGN VIEWS.

WORKERS' VICTORY.

Much Room for Improved Conditions. BRITISH PRESS COMMENT. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 1 p.m.) LONDON, June 9. "The Times" Paris correspondent says the raising of wages to a level more closely approaching the Western European standard illustrates the danger of trying to achieve social progress in a country where currency is seriously overvalued. The trade unions won a sweeping victory, but have not got much more than the British workingman has received for years. French workers have f<sr long been employed in premises which British factory inspectors would not tolerate. A wage advance was won only after years of constant agitation and sullen acquiescence in a life on subsistence level, yet despite the bitterness of the struggle the strikers maintained perfect order—sweeping the factories, painting floors, repairing plumbing, even taking up collections ,to repair plate-glass windows accidentally broken. No outsiders were allowed to intervene, 170 women in a one-price stoic, even repelling with a fire hose a number of young Fascists who attempted to enter. The "Manchester Guarding" Paris correspondent says it is diflieult for outsiders to realise the enormous effect of Monday's agreement on the working class. The truth is that the bulk of employers, for the first time agreed to sign a general agreement with qualified representatives of the entire working class and thereby became patrons in the eyes of the workers, abandoning their sacred prerogatives and placing themselves on a footing of equality with the proletariat. The agreement has, inter alia, ended the practice whereby certain employers could openly refuse to employ union labour, Socialists or Communists.