MR THORN’S VIEW

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 48, Issue 2795, 8 August 1938, Page 5

MR THORN’S VIEW

LABOUR CONFERENCE BEAUTIFUL CHURCHES BABEL OF LANGUAGES FIFTY NATIONS REPRESENTED Mr James Thorn, M.P., writes to the Gazette from Geneva, on June 4, as follows: — We arrived at Geneva on Tuesday evening after a 23-hour journey from London, during which four hours were spent in Paris. The journey through France was full of interest and delight. The villages clustered round the churches, the intensive cultivation, the unfenced fields, the charming rivers and woodlands combined to give distinction to the scene and to present a most pleasing panorama. We know now why Frenchmen love passionately “La Belle France.” View of Geneva On Wednesday Geneva, from our hotel window, looked superb. Built round the lake where it emerges into the River Rhone it is a delightful city, and in whichever way the eye turns the view is lovely. The placid waters of the lake, the distant snowclad Mont Blanc, the towers and spires on the churches, the noble monuments, the promenades, the gardens and trees —all these, and the wonder one derives from association with a spot in which the struggle for freedom has been waged for centuries filled us with an inexpressible pleasure. Geneva on Wednesday had an es- ' pecially gay appearance. It was my

56th. birthdoy but the flags were flying to celebrate a great Swiss national even t—the union of Geneva with the Swiss Republican 'Federation. In the evening we attended a municipal band concert at the rotunda on the Promenade du Lac and afterwards watched .a torchlight procession of several hundreds of Swiss patriots headed by a drum and bugle band. * Turmoil Under the Surface We are most favourably impressed by the cleanliness of the streets, the lovely shops, and the well-dressed and orderly people. However, things cannot be precisely as they seem, because on the night of our arrival the Socialists marched out of the municipal council, and the night after a brawl between socialists and antisocialists took place in a cafe and .several were injured. It fills one with strange emotions to in a cathedral built nearly 1000 years ago in which Knox and Calvin preached, to know that Rousseau and Voltaire (to say nothing of Trotsky and Lenin) lived and worked nearby, and, as one is strolling along the street, to read on an ancient tower by the river Rhone that there Julius Caesar crossed w’ith his Roman legions to attack the Gauls. Open-air Markets Around this tower there is a quaint open-air market at which crowds of , people were buying cheese, poultry, meat, vegetables and fruit. There are other markets all very clean and colourful in different parts of the town. I confess to the feeling that the Swiss are much tidier in this " ’‘matter than my London fellow- ' countrymen. We wandered into an old Protestant church this morning. We felt breathless as the loveliness of its architecture stole in upon us. A girl wes playing the organ, unaware that she had our two selves, sitting in the dim religious light, for an audience. * And an organ, such glorious music! Tower of Babel ” The International Labour Conference opened on Thursday in the vast ■*nd Assembly Hall of the

League of Nations. Nearly 400 delegates and advisers were present from nearly 50 nations. In the vestibule before the proceedings opened the proceedings opened the conversation among scores of delegates was like a veritable Tower of Babel. In the conference though, although the language difficulty prolongs the proceedings, English and French are apparently all that is necessary to get the meaning across to most delegates. The routine business —such as the election of the president and of committees —is cut and dried (necessarily and justifiably so) by the governing body, so that for a great world conference speaking many tongues the business is done expeditiously. Trade Union Movement After the conference had been opened by the chairman of the governing body, Mr F. W. Leggett, leader of the British Government delegation, the Brazilian Minister of Labour, Professor Waldemar Falcao, was unanimously elected as the president, but not until after a gentle reminder by one of the British workers’ delegates that the trade union movement in Brazil had apparently been denied the right of representation at the conference. Professor Falcao’s speech on taking the chair, delivered in French, was by no means an unenlightened utterance. One matter of interest to New Zealand occurred yesterday when committees on the items on the agenda paper were being elected. A Belgian, speaking for the employers’ group, announced that with two exceptions, this group objected to the inclusion of the generalisation of the reduction of working, hours in the conference agenda and that a decision had been taken not to participate in the discussion on this question.

New Zealand Disparaged In a statement disparaging the 40hour week in New Zealand he made the remarkable assertion that there was no restriction of overtime in the Dominion. This allegation will be replied to, but it was astounding that so provocative a statement should have been permitted at a stage when it could not be debated. To-day the conference did not sit, the governing body being in secret meeting to elect the new director of the International Labour Office, in place of Mr H. Butler who has resigned. So this afternoon we attended an open-air concert by the Symphony Orchestra of Geneva. “Would I Wake Up?” Sitting under the trees, looking out over the lake at the fountain throwing up a plume of water 200 feet high and. listening to the music I caught myself wondering whether I really was in Geneva. Was it too good to be true ? Were the little Swiss children who were playing near a dream? Would I wake up to find myself in Thames badgered for* roads and bridges and swatting the Year Book for some unanswerable figures? By the way I have talked to Chinese, Spanish, Maxican, Czecho-Slovak, Indian and Norwegian delegates. The Chinese, Mr Li Ping-Heng, a young man with an intelligent and kindly face, remembered Mr H. T. Armstrong at the last conference. He said that Mr Armstrong was “very good.”