Shorter Working Week.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20756, 17 January 1933, Page 6

Shorter Working Week.

A short message from Geneva yestet-1 day reported an address in which the British workers' delegate urged upon the Shorter Hours Conference of the International Labour Office the necessity for a shorter working week. The world's unemployed millions, in his view, could not be told that they must bo maintained by tho employed workers, and these would not stand any further reductions; therefore, the work must be shared round among a greater number by reducing hours. But the argument presents the weakness from which it is very seldom freed. Employed workers will not accept lower wages; let them, then, work fewer hours for the same wages, In other words, the wage costs of industry are to be raised, because that must inevitably be the result if a larger number of workers is employed, at unreduced weekly rates, to produce the same total output. Great Britain certainly cannot afford to cmbrace such a proposition. Her unemployment is very largely due to the increasing effectiveness Of foreign competition in her export markets, to the world depression, and so on; and the effect of loading industry with this extra cost in its fight would be to create unemployment faster than it could be relieved. If the answer to that is that Great Britain would be no worse off if all other countries loaded their industry similarly, it rests upon the foundation of a very undependable " if." When other countries are ready to ratify a shorter hours convention, solving all the problems of differential economic standards, the solution will ! enter the sphere of practical discussion.