HARD TO RATIFY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 288, 21 November 1928, Page 5

HARD TO RATIFY

EIGHT HOURS CONVENTION TEXT VEILED AND AMBIGUOUS STATEMENT IN HOUSE OF LORDS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 21, 11.30 a.m.) Rugby, Nov. 20. Th© Earl of Lotton, in the House of Lords, raised the question of the Washington Eight Hours’ Convention, and moved that the Government should inform the International Labour Office, at Geneva, of the precise points on which they desired a revision of convention.

Lord Londonderry, on behalf of the Government, said that the country was bound to maintain and promote the application of the general principle of an eight-hour day, or 48hour week, so far as our special circumstances permitted, because that was part of our undertaking in the Treaty of Versailles'. The text of the convention, however, he said, was found to be veiled and ambiguous, and it failed to provide the necessary guarantee for uniformity of practice after ratifica tion, and made no allowance for various industrial practices perfectly consistent with its main purposes. The British Government, he asserted, was impressed by the fact that the interpretations given to various articles of the convention by different countries were widely divergent. Neither the present Conservative Government of this country, nor a Labour Government could ratify a convention so inapplicable in its present shape to our particular circumstances, and containing such ambiguities. We had, he said, no desire to oppose the principle of eight hours. We desired only to render the convention, an instrument under which uniformity of practice and enforcement would be assured by removing ambiguities, and making provision for various industrial practices which in any wav opposed the principle of the convention.