IMPORTANT MATTERS TOUCHED ON.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 6 August 1919, Page 8

IMPORTANT MATTERS TOUCHED ON.

(BY TELEGRAPH—PPF-SS ASSOCIATION ) AUCKLAND, Aug. o'. One of the far-reaching and important subjects dealt with by the .I eace Conference," said Sir Joseph Hard, "is contained in the Labor Charter which is attached to the lease Covenant, ami is intended to deal vyith Labor problems. The charier affirms a great principle, but its practicability must remain more than in doubt until all the great Countries are included in it. Two of the great Powers—the United States and Japan —have not subscribed to it. It certainly was disappointing to me that the great protagonist who represented America found it necessary, for internal political reasons, to have the United States excluded from the proposals of the Labor Charter. In the ease of Japan her acquiescence is postponed for a period of five years. Obviously if the countries who have ' given their adhesion to it were to enact by local legislation similar rates of pay and hours for labor in various industries, they would be in the position of having to compete with all other great countries free of any such responsibility, and the structure, the foundation of which was laid in Paris, would be unstable in its real effect. Nevertheless, it is a great move forward that a commencement has been made. "The idea is a fine one," commented Sir Joseph, "and I should dearly like to see it generally adopted and finally carried into effective operation. A*ter all. it is a task of great magnitude and much perplexity to tackle a world-wide problem affecting so many different races with different local conditions, and if a universal system were evolved in a period of five or even ten years, it would be next i door to a miracle. The opinion I form I is that each part of the British Empire, as well as each of the great countries that were represented at the Peace Conference, will require to work out its own problem as affecting labor, within its own bounds and through its j own legislatures."