AMERICA'S EFFORT

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 105, 31 October 1933, Page 10

AMERICA'S EFFORT

NATIONAL RECOVERY

MR. NASH'S IMPRESSIONS

"MILES TO TRAVEL"

Views on the operation of the National Eecovery Act in the United States were given by Mr. Walter Nash, M.P., who was a member of the New Zealand delegation to the Conference of tho Institute of Pacific Relations at Banff, to a "Post" reporter todaj'.

Mr. Nash said that subsequent to going to the conferences at Banff and Toronto, he visited Washington arid New York to get in touch with officials operating the National Recovery Act. The scope of the National Eecovery Administration was not confined to industrial recover, although' that might be the most important, but there was also the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Public Works Administration Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, and the Farm Locfn Credits Board. He had brought back with him the code 3 that had already been written in connection with industrial recovery, and these were much like the awards previously operating in New Zealand under tho Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. •

From conversations with officials and advocates of the Labour movement in the United States, said Mr. Nash,, he was satisfied that the industrial recovery section will go much farther than it has at present. From conversations with the Hon. Frances Perkins, Minister of Labour, and other officials of the Labour Department, he learned that tho Government intends to remove the menace of poverty, which has been and is being experienced by a large section of the population of the United States.

AGREEMENTS BETWEEN EMPLOYERS.

Inside the provisions of the National Recovery Act, said Mr. Nash, there were a lot of- things that had been operating in New Zealand for the last thirty years, but there 'were' mew sections, as in the Industrial Becovery Act, to provide for agreements between employers and trades as to fair trading conditions. In New Zealand employers did not have discussions with regard to competitive factors. In New Zealand the rates of pay, hours of labour, and conditions of work were under arbitration, but in the United States they went a bit further than that. Keferring to the cotton textile code, Mr. Nash stated that it provided for a minimum wage of 12 dollars a week in Southern States, 13 dollars a week in Northern States, a 40-hour week, and the abolition of child labour (under sixteen year/s). It provided for periodical statistical returns from all members of the cotton textile industry ■bearing on wagers, hours, production, and consumption. The codes also provide for the setting up of a continuing planning and fair practice agency of all the trade associations affected, to supervise the execution of the code, to develop statistical accounting, to organise credit control, and to carry out long-range planning- in the interests of the industry and stabilisation of employment. This agency, which takes the form of a committee, provides for self-government in the industry,, and will be subject to the approval of the National Recovery administration.

The provisions set out above in connection with the cotton textile industry are, with minor amendments, included in the code of other industries,

UNEMPLOYED FOUND WORK.

Mr. Nash stated that-America was apparently trying to do in twelve months what it had taken New Zealand many years to accomplish. The result of the operation of the code, prior to the time he left America, was that ■2,800,000 unemployed had been found standard employment. The wage bill of August, as compared with that of July had increased by 12,000,000 dollars, and a later statement suggested that the September wage bill had-in-creased by 10,000,000 dollars a week, as compared with that of the previous month. , However, although employment naa been found for three million people in the United States, there were still between eight and nine millions unemployed, and the President would have to go much farther to avoid a catastrophe Mr. Nash said he believed that the President and his advisers were fully aware of the position, and that they would take all possible steps to see that those willing to work would receive enough to maintain themselves and their families'if work could not be found for them. To show the dangerous situation in the United States at the beginning of the present year, Mr. Nash quoted an article by Mr. A. A. Berle, jun., one of the advisers to the President in connection with reconstruction. Mr. Berle said in effect that when the incoming Government took over the controls on March 4 last the .banking system had broken down, the currency system had broken down, and commerce was paralysed. These factors in themselves were striking, but the underlining factors, however, were far more dangerous. Accurate statistics were lacking, but.it could be safely said that on March 4 last, 30,000,000 people in the United States of America were living on charity or drawing their last savings to keep themselves alive. In the industrial section approximately 11,000,000 workers were unemployed. The plight, of the farming population would not bear comment. When the banks were closed it was realised at the time that an increase in unemployment would follow this action, and more people would be living on charity. The relief lines were longer, and the misery was greater in the 30 days following the opening of the banks. The number of the unemployed had jumped somewhere to the vicinity of 15,000,000.

REMARKABLE PROGRESS

At that point, said Mr. Nash, with tho National Recovery Administration, America set out to overcome the greatest difficulties which any Western country had ever faced. The progress up to the present time had been remarkable. Personally, he was of the opinion that only some yards had been covered in the miles that the country had yet to travel.