BRITISH EXPERT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 137, 13 June 1938, Page 3

BRITISH EXPERT.

.VISIT TO DOMINION. r RELATIONS IN INDUSTRY. CONCILIATION SYSTEMS. Government officials, employers' representatives, trade union leaders and university authorities will be consulted by Professor J. H. Richardson, professor i in industrial relations at Leeds Univer- * sity, during a stay of four or five weeks • in New Zealand. An expert on inter- • national industrial affairs, Professor j Richardson, who arrived at Auckland in ( the Niagara to-day, will make a particular study of the Dominion's system of : arbitration and conciliation. His present chair at Leeds University has been occupied by Professor Richardson since. 1930. He was attached to the research division of the International Labour Office at Geneva from 1921 to 1930, and conducted international economic and statistical investigations, with special reference to labour conditions. Ho was visiting professor of social legislation at Columbia University, New York, in 1928, and since 1932 he has studied industrial relations in America and Europe. Unique in Democracies. Among the professor's publications is a work; "Industrial Relations in Great Britain," written for and published by the International Labour Organisation. A new edition has just appeared. Other of his studies are a book on British economic foreign, policy and another on the minimum wage question. The arbitration and conciliation systems of New Zealand and Australia were unique, Professor Richardson said today, in that no other democratic countries had had lengthy experience of the operation of compulsory arbitration. It . did exist, however, in soma of the dictatorship countries, but conditions there were entirely different. "Comparatively, the methods of regulation operating in Britain differ considerably from those in New Zealand/' ho said. "In Britain the system of voluntary collective agreements is usual. I want particularly to consider what features of the New Zealand system might be suitable for application in Britain if conditions made this desirable. "Sinco the grave industrial unrest up till 1920 British industrial relations have been reasonably peaceful, and no considerable changes in the system are likely as long as these conditions pre- » vail." Nevertheless, some of the New L Zealand methods might usefully supple-' , mcnt the normal practice of conciliation . in Great Britain." ' Unions Show Restraint. t Professor Richardson declared that although rearmament was necessary, in view of the gravity of the international situation, it undoubtedly involved in I Britain a retarding of progress in the . improving of working conditions. Money spent on armaments could otherwise have been used for social services and . for raising the living standards. "Probably the dclicacy of the international situation acts as an additional > restraint on the trade unions, in the . way of avoiding such pressure on their [ demands as would involve serious stop- • pages of work," Professor Richardson , continued. "The standard of living of l the people of Great Britain, taking the workers as a whole, .is about as high as it has ever been, but against this, ' must be i offset an unduly high volume of unemployment. This is very considerably higher than it was before the depression, and there seems no likelihood of its being reduced in the near future to the 1929. level. "Indeed, the last few months have j seen a distinct deterioration in the em--1 ployment situation, notwithstanding the 1 high demand for labour in the munition S'ulustrics. There seems to bo *no J doubt that industry in Britain has been suffering since about September of last i year from a cyclical decline in general business activity, influenced partly by • the decline in prosperity in tlie ftnited States."