The Evening Star MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1937. THE FORTH-HOUR WEEK.

Evening Star, Issue 22686, 28 June 1937, Page 8

The Evening Star MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1937. THE FORTH-HOUR WEEK.

I:,- April last a conference on the textile industry, under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation, was hold in Washington. Eight nations were represented. The purpose for which the gathering was called was “ to consider how the work already undertaken in connection with the improvement of conditions in the textile industry can best be advanced, and to take into account all those aspects of the textile industry which, direct or indirectly, may have a bearing on the improvement of social conditions in that industry.” Among the matters discussed was the question of the forty-hour week. The workers’ delegates passed a resolution in favour of its adoption. Cuba and India opposed the proposal, and the British delegates were divided, one remarking, in connection with the increase costs of production that would be entailed: “ You can’t get a quart out of a pint pot.” Tho British employers were prominent in the debate. Six of them had emphasised that further social progress in Great Britain, above all, a reduction in the hours of work, was impossible in the face of the existing competition. Tho main argument put forward* by them

was that the backward nations should raise their standards of living. The British workers’ delegates naturally opposed the employers’ thesis. They contended that a reduction of hours was possible and necessary, and that in Great Britain even the collective agreements, stressed by the employers, were not universally operative. Cases were cited of considerable excess of hours beyond lire standard forty-eight. It was not intended that the conference should be more than preparatory. It was the first attempt to discuss all the problems of the industry on the lines advocated at Geneva in 1936 by the British Minister of Labour. The American Government was quite sympathetic, and the fact that neither the United States of America nor Japan was a member of tho League of Nations was advanced as a reason for tho creation of a special body to deal with the matters involved, which include proposals for tho removal of trade barriers. At Geneva this month tho International Labour Office debated the question of the forty-hour week. A convention on a forty-hour week for tho textile industry secured the necessary two-thirds majority by 81 votes to 31, while 38 of those entitled to vote did not do so. The Hon. H. T. Armstrong, New Zealand’s Minister of Labour, took a lively part in tho debate. Ho was anything hut conciliatory in an exchange of words with the British employers’ representative, remarking, “ Our textile employers are more prosperous than ever. If British employers, with all their experience, cannot make a forty-hour week pay, they should go to New Zealand to learn ,tlicir business.” The necessarily condensed report of the proceedings must bo taken with a Certain amount of caution, but if the statements credited to Mr Armstrong are correct they will be regarded as news in this Dominion. One remark was that “ When the hours were reduced to forty a week in New Zealand income increased by 20 per cent., amounting to £14,000,000 a year, resulting in the demand for goods increasing enormously.” Mr Armstrong gives, credit to the forty-hour week movement in the matter of expansion of business that properly belongs to tho increased prosperity in this Dominion that runs concurrently with the experience of other Empire countries.' The chief effect here, so far as can be judged at the moment, of the fortj-hour week in the textile industry, is to cause a heavy increase in costs to the consumer without giving much more employment than would have occurred normally under the improved trading conditions.