The Forty-hour Week

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 256, 25 July 1936, Page 11

The Forty-hour Week

Sir,—No doubt “Gilbert and Sullivan” will reply to "Anti-Nonsense” so far as uis general letter is concerned, but 1 want to say something about,his explanation of the dearth of skilled tradesmen. He says that "Anyone with any intelligence at all could see four years ago that under the old Government policy, no tradesmen would be available in or about 1936.” I claim to have some intelligence, and have followed this problem for some years. It was as long ago as 1920 that the Secretary for Labour in his annual report commented on the falling-off of skilled labour. Thus sixteen years ago the coming shortage of skilled tradesmen was clear: the causes were not easy to determine, one certainly was that youths preferred to get straight into unskilled work at high wages than to go through a period of apprenticeship. Another reason was the policy of trade unionists to limit the number of apprentices.. Your correspondent is therefore wrong in saying the cause of the problem dates -back only four years.-! am, etc., AJAX Wellington, July 23.