LABOUR LAWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 130, 3 June 1936, Page 5

LABOUR LAWS

GENEVA CONVENTIONS

The failure of New Zealand to ratify any of the forty-nine conventions adopted by the International Labour i Office of the League of Nations was [referred to at a meeting of the Wei- ■ lington branch of the League of Nations Union last night when Mr. F. D. Cornwell, who was a delegate to Geneva in 1935, was the speaker. Mr. Cornwell was welcomed by the chairman, Dr. J. H. Beaumont, and addressed the meeting on the activities of the 1.L.0. He gave an interesting outline of the coiduct of the conference on lines similar to the interview he gave upon his return to New Zealand last year. The 1.L.0. had been in existence for nineteen years, Mr. Cornwell said, but New Zealand had not ratified any of the conventions adopted during that time. However, the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) had assured him that he would deal with the question of ratification as soon as time permitted. Great Britain was going to ratify eleven conventions during the life of the present British Parliament, and that indicated how Britain had lagged behind because, on an average, only t>vo conventions were adopted each year. Britain had not been helpful, her example having influenced other and smaller countries to neglect ratification. He expressed the opinion that Britain must have approved most of the conventions although they had not received Parliamentary ratification.