N.Z. AGAIN LEADS

Grey River Argus, 12 August 1937, Page 10

N.Z. AGAIN LEADS

Forty-Hour Week MR ARMSTRONG’S SP"CH AT GENEVA. NEW ZEALAND’S EXPERIENCE CONSIDERED VALUABLE. [Our Special Correspondent]. LONDON, June '22. By the last mail I sent out the speech of the New Zealand Government delegate to the International Labour Conference (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) on the report of the Director of the Labour Office at Geneva. It is interesting to know that in his reply to the speeches of the delegates on his report, the Director apparently found points of particular interest in Mr Armstrong's speech. In his prefatory remarks he said that no less than seventy-three speakers had come to the rostrum during the debate. and amongst them were no less than five Labour Ministers—from Finland, France. Great Britain, New Zealand and Yugoslavia. The cause of social progress, he said, was no longer an affair of a few philanthropists; it had become the vital concern of . Governments. "The note struck by Mr Armstrong," he added, “seemed to me to sum up the spirit of the movement. Mr Armstrong had said: ‘New Zealand once held the proud position of leading the world in social reform, and we shall not be satisfied till we regain that position.’ “That,” said tne Director, “is the true international rivalry of the civilised world, a new rivalry in constructive policy to , replace the older rivalry for power, , as Mr Ferguson expressed it. It is that spirit which must animate this organisation if it is to play its part ' ' worthily in the difficult days that lie before us, and that note, which has , been struck more than once during , the debate I think has some political significance. On the one hand, as Mr Garcia Oldini said, it is now more or less generally accepted that the improvement of living standards is not . inconsistent with sound economy, and that suggests that it is possible , to advance civilised living without re- , lying on force as the means of na- , tional progress. And a second point, , of hardly lesser importance, is the • constant insistence on the necessity , of international consultation and cooperation if that aim is to be achieved. In a later part of his speech the , Director said: “We heard Mr West at the Washington Conference relate in detail the favourable results achieved in his own mill through the etsablishment of a shorter work , period. We find Mr Armstrong telling us that in New Zealand the employers'have not'been ruined by the 40-hour week as they expected. Mr , Lebas has stated that, although the Decrees applying the 40-hour week to nearly eight million workers and employees in France have only recently come into operation, they have been mainly responsible for restoring a quarter of a million persons to em- . ployment. “These are facts, and I venture to think that they cannot any longer be simply dismissed by advancing theories and hypotheses against them—such as that a reduction of hours would disorganise prices, reduce production catastrophically, destroy the balance between industry ■ and agriculture, and so on. These things have apparently not happened in the countries where hours have been reduced. A prima facie case in favour of the shorter working week has therefore been made out by the actual experience of a number of countries. It is no longer a battle, cf words and ideas, but a confrontation of facts. “I cannot persuade myself that what has proved feasible and advantageous in France, New Zealand and the United States is bound to be disastrous in every other country. No doubt a great deal depends on the degree of technical progress which has been attained. Mr Harriman suggested that the Office should ’undertake an enquiry on this point. I doubt whether such an enquiry could he successfully conducted except by the national authorities in each country; but if, as I hope, such an enquiry is undertaken, I should be very much surprised if it showed so wide a difference between the rate of increase of technical efficiency achieved in Europe and the United States as the speeches and the attitude of many delegates in this Conference seem to suggest. Technical improvement in making the 40-hour week ; not only economically possible, but , also socially indispensable, and I I would ask the indulgence of the Con- |

ference if I dwell on these two points for a few minutes. “What, is the present situation? As Mr Ernest Brown emphasised, ‘the new fact of our post-War world which overshadowed all others in industry is the amazing scale of new productive manufacturing capacity. The last twenty-five years has given us a more tremendous acceleration of mechanical production, and greater and more tremendous effective machinery, th-.u ary other period in the world’s history.’ Mr Harriman went cii to illustrate this point by informing us that it nad been calculated in the United States that 43 men could nroduce in 1930 as much as 100 men in 1899. And we might ask how many fewer men could produce the same nuantity in 1937; for technical progress, so far from having been arrested by the depression, has been stimulated by the need for lower costs to even greater achievements. “What does all this mean? It means, on the' one hand, that industry between 1914 and 1937 has become far more adaptable to a shorter working week owing to the great increase in its productivity. Surely it means that, just as the great, advance ini productivity brought about between 1850 and 1919 made it possible to introduce the 48-hour week without anv disastrous economic consequences so a similar advance has been made in the last twenty-five years which has brought a further reduction of hours in sight. „ T * “But it means something more. Lt implies that the shorter working week is not merely economically possible but that the very conditions which have'made it possible have also made it necessary. , The Director also said: I should like to thank Mr Armstrong for the invitation which he extended to me to send someone to investigate the progress which has been made in New Zealand in the last twelve months. I should like to accept that invitation with very great pleasure I only wish that I felt that I should be able to accept it on my own behalf, but in any case I feel that what is now being done in New Zealand is so important that we ought to have more detailed and more first-nand information about it than we at present possess.” ..