VISIT TO BRITAIN

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20328, 17 August 1940, Page 11

VISIT TO BRITAIN

FEDERATION OF LABOUR NORTHERN PROPOSAL “REFRESHER COURSE” (Per Press Association.) HAMILTON, this day. The opinion that the policy of the Federation of Labour in New Zealand was 30 years out of date and that before it forced the Government to commit political and economic suicide the federation should be sent home to England at the Government’s expense for a refresher course was expressed by Mr. W. Goodfellow, managing director of Amalgamated Dairies, in an address at the annual smoke concert of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company last evening. Air. Goodfellow said that personal contact with sound and experienced Labour leaders and their problems, he believed, would be of inestimable, value , not only to the members of the federation, but also to the Government and people of the Dominion. New Zealand was unfortunate in being isolated and situated so far from the world’s great industrial centres, Mr. Goodfellow continued. Probably this was the cause of the out-of-date methods advocated in the Dominion. To imagine that a higher standard of living for the workers could be obtained and retained by higher and yet higher wages and shorter hours was recognised by union leaders in England as being a physical impossibility. They knew by experience that it was the goods produced and not the capital that must provide the wages. How then could a higher standard be obtained by producing fewer goods?