LABOUR AT GENEVA

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 230, 24 June 1932, Page 9

LABOUR AT GENEVA

No Help to New Zealand INFLUENCE OF POLITICS If anyone asked Mr. Albert Spencer, president of the Auckland Provincial Employers’' Association, who recently represented New Zealand at the International Labour .Conference at Geneva, whether he thought the Dominion could reap any benefits from the Geneva labour organisation, 1 Mr. Spencer would probably reply,. “No.” He explained his point of view to “The Dominion” on Wednesday. “As it seemed to me,” he said, “many of the European representatives at Geneva were there not for the good of the world at large, but for their own; selfish political purposes. “Goodwill and sincerity are absolutely necessary to-day if any permanent cure is to be found., for our present troubles. But those are two qualities in which most European representatives at Geneva seem to be deficient. “But there is more to it than that,” Mr. Spencer remarked. “Full discussions took place at the conference upon ’inany questions affecting labour, hours of work, rates of pay, measures to make improvements in working conditions and to. raise the standard o£ living, and also upon important schemes dealing with economic problems which nations are faced with throughout the. world. But it does not seem likely that a solution of these problems which are affecting the different nations would be the means of improving the conditions of work in Australia and New Zealand. “The.fact of the matter is that conditions in these two countries, the Dominion and the Commonwealth of Australia, are so far ahead of those obtaining in European countries that in the ordinary course of events years or even generations must elapse, before they improve sufficiently to bring the mass of the people up to our own standards of living. “Under those circumstances I found it difficult, and almost impossible, to make one single suggestion likely to help this country, or to see any benefit for the English-speaking nations froto these conferences, at all events not unless European nations bring their conditions more into line with our own. i “One of the greatest troubles to-day.” Mr. Spencer said,'“is the excessive qost of production. Another is the luck of dh economic distribution of the surplus population. Still another dangerous factor is the hoarding of gold, as the examples of France and America show. But the greatest evil of all is the prevalence of unemployment throughout the world. Now if the International Labour Office at Geneva would concentrate its entire energy upon those, four vital evils in an attempt to find some solution. its' successful efforts would be applauded by the whole world.” Mr. Spencer said also that much of the time of the session was wasted upon the consideration of subjects and ’difficulties which were of such a nature that they were too slight and local to be worth the attention of such a large and representative body. In concluding, he paid a tribute to the late M. Albert Thomas, general secretary of the International Labour Office.