LABOR LAWS AND INDUSTRY

Evening Star, Issue 19776, 28 January 1928, Page 11

LABOR LAWS AND INDUSTRY

ARRANGEMENTS TOR INQUIRY (.Special to the ‘Stas.’] . WELLINGTON, January 27. The Government lias invited the members of the Committee of Parliamentarians to meet in Wellington on Wednesday, February 1, to consider proposals for the investigation of the effect of tile Now Zealand labor laws on industry, and particularly on primary industry. The .Prime Minister has been actively associating with the Minister of Labor in arranging the details of this preliminary meeting. It is intended to submit suggestions regarding the method of getting at the tacts of the situation and reaching sound conclusions. There will be investigations carried on simultaneously by a number of carefully selected groups, and it will bo the respopsibility of the parliamentarians to lay down the lines of inquiry, and to plan the groups, with which no doubt they will be associated. It was mentioned that Mr Holland (Leader of the Opposition) desired a colleague to act in his place, as he was then in poor health. Ho will, however, be in Wellington when the committee commences its work, and he may be able to take bis place as at first suggested by tho Prime Minister. Although the investigated! arose out of the farming interests’ anxiety to bo completely relieved of statutory regulation of its labor conditions, the inquiry is expected to cover the general effect of awards upon production. A somewhat similar inquiry is taking place in England, and it is an interesting point that the proposal for New Zealand’s overhaul of its labor legislation was made before the English plans were announced. A good deal of official attention has been given to the same problem in the United States, where it has been contended that the high cost of products produced under labor conditions has imposed such burdens on the agricultural section that the returns from the land are inadequate.