INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18369, 30 April 1925, Page 10

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION.

ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR CONDLIFFE. The Council of the Christchurch Branch of the League of Nations Union decided recently that general meetings of the branch should be held monthly, at which addresses would be given on economic and other subjects. A meeting was held in the Y.M.C.A. rooms last night, whon the president, Professor J, B. Condliffe, gave a lecture on the International Labour Organisation. In the course of his address Professor Condliffe said that armed conflict would be less disadvantageous to the world than economic conflict. The , cheap labour schemes that were in operation in the East were a menace to European industries. To combat these evils the International Labour Organisation was in a better position than the League of Nations. Tho head of the League of Nations was an Englishman, Sir E. ( Drummond,' who worked in tho traditional English way with a loose rein. At the head of the Labour Organisation Office was a Frenchman who exercised a minute control, and this organisation had gone ahead more quickly thah the League. People should be careful, said the speaker, to draw a distinction -between- those who .worked at Geneva and the actual organisation iteslf, which was very 'wide, and of which New Zealand was" a component part. New Zealand had not yet appointed a delegate—due to lack of imagination on the- part of the leaders of New Zealand public opinion. Possibly/the two words, "international" and ''labour" were too much for, the Government, and- it was unable to rise above them. The cost of sending four representatives to Geneva and back would be.about..;.£ 1000. The Government could vote £100,000; for a base

at Singapore, so sorely &h not bo held us an effectiveS| sending of a New Zealand <i£| Geneva. People must devejjni consciousness. They msafcl points of view and "bring ?|j< bility the scheme the economic experts. Ttap

was not a big policeman bufci focussing a common mesuii ment. ~?M Abusive child labour waig in India, said the speakers misery which was so eviiM land a hundred years ago Thoso conditions of cheap w low standard of living h§| bearing on European prospajj was produced on an enona*i| very cheap labour in Ck£ftsl would interfere with EarOfe The International Labour Qfl| only organisation able t«m| menace and everyone should a or her business to bnitaelj International Organisational work. People had only blame if lower wages ariS ment in Europe resulted labour and low standard of!m| obtained in the East. Jt.M not taken a period of mtem experienced by the eomiaga All the working classes of Jg New Zealand were detanlß "White Australia" poHeJjl clearly impossible for oor.jn teristics to be built up alai coolie class of labour fajm country. Tho coolie class <|| that came out —he had be**s| a child—was a class to avof|| and health menace. ffighttfl could not compete sneeessnw lower standards Chinese were content* irajff less shelter and less elo&qg; efficient at the same timeTM could bring them .op to mcr then we could' menace in ternational liabwi.OnfaaisM the body to of affairs. ' ;;"&,C -52UAt the condaaum-'oltUatfMJ feasor Condliffe thanks. -.