TWOFOLD TASK

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21852, 24 October 1945, Page 7

TWOFOLD TASK

1.L.0. CONFERENCE BREAK FROM LEAGUE MAJOR ECONOMIC ISSUES (Special Correspondent.) (10 a.m.) LONDON, Oct, 23. Representatives of the governments, employers and workers of 39 nations have been meeting for .the past week in the great amphitheatre of the Sorbonne, the University of Paris, in the first conference of the International Labour Organisation to be held on the Continent since before the war. Their tasks are twofold: First, they propose to shape the constitution of the organisation, which is to be divorced from .the League of Nations, to fit it as an instrument of the society of United Nations and, secondly, there will be a discussion of many problems, mostly on a high economic plane, for setting the post-war wotld back on a peaceful and prosperous course. Although invited to attend, Russia is the only major member of .the United Nations not represented, but it is believed that when the organisation severs its connection with the League of Nations the path will be cleared for the Soviet participation. Italy, which terminated her membership in 1939, has again applied to rejoin and it is believed that this application will be granted. Rehabilitation Tasks With Paris as the setting for ihe conference, the delegates have an example of one of their chief problems, the rehabilitation of Europe, before their eyes. The realisation of the hardships being suffered by the people of Paris is acting as a hard factual illustration for a conference concerned with the future well-being of the world. Among the delegates themselves are many who know intimately the consequences of occupation for a large number of members of resistance groups are with the continental representatives. One of them, M. Alexandre Parodl, French Minister of Labour, was elected the conference president. The conference spent most of the first week in preparation and the selection of committees to discuss reports. They are now discussing a proposal to sever connection with the League o[ Nations and link with the United Nations and also to examine methods .to make the organisation more effective in the new era. Members are also to be asked to consider whether economic policies, national and international, will promote full employment and the raising of the standard of living. Another report proposes a comprehensive children’s charter and expresses concern over the problems of young workers, particularly those whose childhood has been broken and distorted by enemy occupation. Dependent Peoples The progressive application of labour standards and social policy to dependent peoples is being discussed in consideration of a report on dependent territories. While the conference seeks its solutions to world economics, it recognises that the potentialities of atomic energy have altered the entire perspective of social and political thought. “The atomic bomb has revolutionised ways of making war, but it has not revolutionised ways of making peace,” said the chairman of the governing body, Mr. Carter Goodrich, of the United States “It has made the need of preventing war more desperately urgent.” “Men must choose between a peaceful world and none at all,” was the comment of the acting director, Mr. E. J. Phelan. t ~ In his report, Mr. Phelan said although the International Labour Organisation had no executive responsibility for Europe's problems and was not equipped to assume such a responsibility, the Paris conference would afford a "unique opportunity for focussing the attention of the world on the magnitude and urgency of these problems.” ______