EIGHT-HOUR DAY

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 50, 22 November 1928, Page 9

EIGHT-HOUR DAY

THE WASHINGTON CONVENTION AMBIGUITIES IN TEXT REVISION DESIRED BY BRITAIN (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, November 20. The Earl of Lytton, in the House of Lords, raised the question of the Washington Eight Hours Convention, and moved that the Government should inform the International Labour Office at Geneva of the precise points on which they desired a revision of the convention. Lord Londonderry, on behalf of the Government, said that this country was bound to maintain and promote the application of the general principle of the eight-hour day or 48-hour week, so far as our special circumstances permitted, because that was part of our understanding in the Treaty of Versailles. The text of the convention, however, was found to be veiled and ambiguous, and it failed to provide a necessary guarantee for uniformity of practice after ratification, and made no allowance for various industrial practices perfectly consistent with its main purposes. The British Government was impressed by the fact that the interpretations given to various articles of the convention by different countries were widely divergent. Neither the present Conservative Government of this country nor the Labour Government could ratify a convention so inapplicable in its present shape to our particular circumstances and containing such ambiguities. e had no desire to oppose the principle of eight hours. We desired only to render the convention an instrument under which uniformity of practice and enforcement would be assured by removing its ambiguities and making provision for various industrial practices which were not in any way opposed to the principle of the convention.