AUSTRALIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 May 1936, Page 13

AUSTRALIA

[BY cable —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.] CANCER CONFERENCE. MELBOURNE, May 6. The Cancer Conference decided to recommend the Commonwealth Government to treat cancer as a national problem, and to appoint a National Research Council ,to develop fully the facilities at metropolitan and' country centres for the treatment and diagnosis of cancer; that each capital city aim to erect and maintain an up-to-date institute for the treatment of cancer and research. It was also decided that famous international authorities on cancer be invited to attend a conference at Sydney two years hence. 40-HOUR WEEK. CANBERRA, May 6. The Government was criticised on a censure motion in the House of Representatives, to-day, for failure to introduce- the forty-hour week into industry. Mr Curtin, Leader of the Opposition, who moved the motion, said the Labour Party did not merely intend reducing unemployment and combating the depression. “We are also hopeful that tlio forty-hour week will provide a remedy for the evils „of mechanisation and rationalisation.” The Prime Minister, replying, said that Labour must accept responsibility for the delay in introducing the forty-hour week, as it refused to participate in the proposed conference to consider the shorter working week. However, he was prepared to confer with the Leader of the Opposition with the object of exploring the possibilities of a shorter working week, and he repeated the offer to set a committee of inquiry. He feared that the forty-hour week in Australia was not practicable, unless nations whose products competed with Australia, adopted similar action.

J£he motion was defeated on Party lines.