MINISTER ABROAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 70, 20 September 1937, Page 10

MINISTER ABROAD

MR. ARMSTRONG'S TOUR

INDUSTRY IN MANY LANDS

EYES ON NEW. ZEALAND

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day

A considerable amount of knowledge of the industrial conditions in various countries was gained by the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, Minister of Labour, while abroad. He visited large engineering works and other industries in Switzerland, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Irish Free State, the United States, and Canada.

"It was particularly noticeable everywhere," said the Minister, who returned yesterday, "that a great deal of interest is being taken in these days in New Zealand and its affairs. Nearly everyone I met made the remark that New Zealand is a country which they would especially like to visit. New Zealand is credited on the other side of the world with taking a decisive lead in what is admitted, even by prominent industrialists, to be a necessary improvement in the social relationships of industry."

Mr. Armstrong said he had an opportunity of inspecting such plants as the United Steel Works at Sheffield, the English Electric Company at Bradford, the Brown Shipbuilding Yards at Glasgow, the Ford Motor Company at Detroit, U.S.A., the Renault Motor Works in Paris, and the Siemens Electrical Works in Berlin, where 5000 were employed, and of speaking with the men in charge. In Berlin, he said, he had an interesting day with Herr Spangenberg, the district head of the German Labour Front, who said he had a particular reason for kindly feelings towards New Zealanders, because a soldier from the Dominion had saved his life during the war.

Besides seeing the leaders of industry, Mr. Armstrong conferred wherever possible with the local Labour leaders to obtain a balanced impression. In Washington he met Mr. John L. -Lewis, head of the Committee of Industrial Organisation, better known as the C.1.0. In London he had a long talk with Mr. Ben Tillett and others leaders of the Labour movement in Great Britain, at a meeting arranged by them for that purpose. In Dublin and Toronto he had similar meetings.

In Germany and Italy he had tried to sense the feelings of the people, and in no country did the people want war, least of all war with Britain.

Though he did not wish to discuss dictatorships, he said the people could just as easily be led for war as for peace.

THE STATUS OF THE WORKER.

As far as wages were concerned, in comparison with the cost of living, in no country he had visited would it be possible for workers to maintain as high a standard of living as they did in New Zealand. Actual wage rates might be higher, he said, as for example in some parts of America and Canada, but there, too, the cost of living was higher, so that the real wages were no greater. "Workers in New Zealand are as well off as "in any country that I visited, but that is not to say that we have not a long way to go. In some countries they have made reforms far in advance of those we have instituted in New Zealand." For example, in France and Germany workers were paid for a holiday of from eight to fifteen days, during which period they were allowed special concessions in travelling rates and boarding allowances. The Minister said he had noticed also a marked improvement in the social amenities provided for workers. Employers were catering more for employees' amusements. In some places workers actually had their own theatres, paid for for the most part by the employers. Mr.' Armstrong added that in no country he had seen -was the cost of commodities lower than in New Zealand. "I am satisfied that New Zealand will benefit from the information _ I have gained, proposals concerning which I shall submit to Cabinet. These proposals cover a wide range." "In every large city," said the Minister "I made a special effort to, see privately and unofficially the poorer residential districts, and in this way learned something of the conditions in the less attractive parts of London's East End, of Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Paris and New York. Mrs. Armstrong and I usually made these private excursions unaccompanied by local people, but on our visit to the Lower East Side of New York we had the company of Colonel J. J. Allen, Chief Secretary of the Salvation Army there.

INTERESTING EVENTS

'Some interesting and notable events occurred at many of the points along the route which I have followed. The first was at Rome, the day on which I disembarked at Naples to take the Rome express for London. This day there were six hundred thousand visitors—mostly soldiers—in Rome to celebrate the first anniversary of Italy s Empire Day, commemorating the conquest of Abyssinia. In London, of course, there was the Coronation. In Berlin a great workers' festival was being held on one of the picturesque islands on the outskirts of the city. On the way back to London through Paris, I saw the great 14th of July military review which commemorates the fall of the Bastille, and saw the International Exhibition there.

TWO IRISH INCIDENTS.

"My visit to Belfast coincided with the visit of their Majesties the King and Queen, and although within fifty yards of them at the time of the socalled bomb outrage, I did not know it had occurred until reading of it m the newspapers next morning. It did not occur anywhere in the vicinity oi the Royal Procession. Also, although I have read some highly-coloured accounts of the blowing up of a railway bridge near Dundalk the same day, the damage could not have been very serious, because I passed over it m the Dublin express within forty-eight h°''At' Toronto, the annual Canadian Exhibition was about to commence when I was there; at Ottawa I was invited to take part in the opemng of tie exhibition there; and at Vancouver. the Annual Exhibition was in progress "'"O'n'a'visit abroad one learns .to appreciate the extent of the foreign ws which is published ™ New Zealand newspapers. I found it difficult even in the case of the great dailies of world capitals, to follow the trend of worll events from day to day with toe ease with which it can be done from the cable pages of New Zealand s metropolitan dailies. In fact, apart from their political Views, which I naturally think are open to improvement I have seen few overseas newspapers which are better than New Zealand's -jest.

'NEW ZEALAND" A TASS-WORD

"I take it as a compliment to the Dominion that, as a member of the Government, I was so well received everywhere, and that considerable official hospitality was extended to me. In Bradford, for instance, I was

met and welcomed on arrival by the Lord Mayor. The Lord Provost of Glasgow, the Ulster Minister of Labour at Belfast, the German Minister of Labour at Berlin, the Mayor of Toronto in Canada, and others extended generous hospitality. At Dublin Mr. d.c Valera received and entertained the party at the famous Dublin Castle; and his young Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mr. Scan Lemass, whom I had met at Geneva, where he was president of the International Labour Conference, gave much of his time to my affairs .in Dublin. In private and business circles, also, I found that the name New Zealand was sufficient password to every possible assistance and kindness."

WORK OF THE 1.L.0.

The Minister stated that his principal mission abroad had been to act as New Zealand Government representative at the International Labour Conference held annually at Geneva. The conference derived its charter from an Article in the Treaty of Versailles which founded an International Labour Organisation as part of the machinery of the League of Nations. This organisation'is a sort of world Parliament of Governments, workers, and employers, which meets each year for three weeks, but whose work is carried on continuously by a remarkably efficient International Labour Office at Geneva. The office is required by the terms of its constitution to draw its staff as widely as possible from the countries which are its members. New Zealand is represented, on the staff.

The International Labour Organisation was therefore really an offspring of the League of Nations, and, in Mr. Armstrong's opinion, was proving more virile than its parent body. This year it was attended by some five hundred persons, representing Governments, employers, and workers.

The decisions of the conference were written into documents of two qualities, the first being draft conventions, which could acquire by ratification the force of treaties, and the other draft recommendations or resolutions which did not possess, any obligatory character.

This year six draft conventions were prepared in committees of the conference, but only four, when submitted to the whole conference, received the two-thirds majority of votes necessary to secure adoption. These four were:— Fixing the minimum age for admission of children to industrial employment; fixing the minimum age for admission of children to non-industrial employment, concerning the reduction of hours of work in the textile industry; and concerning safety provisions in the building industry. The two draft conventions which failed of adoption provided for a 40----hour week in the chemical industry and in the printing and kindred trades. Mr. Armstrong mentioned that the New Zealand delegation had had a special interest in the draft convention concerning reduction of hours in the textile industry, as the committee had done New Zealand the honour of electing its Government representatives to be its chairman. He had done his best, in a company of some seventyodd international representatives, to carry out the duties of the office with credit to his country, and was naturally pleased that the only 40-hour-week convention adopted by the conference was the one which was drafted by his committee. Besides the draft conventions, a number of recommendations and resolutions on a variety of subjects, ranging from smuggling in China to vocational training in the building industry, were adopted. The most important of these were two which set up machinery for international co-operation and for national planning in respect of public works to secure balanced expenditure on public works, as one means of reducing the severity of periodical fluctuations in employment figures.