INCREASED LEISURE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 63, 12 February 1936, Page 8

INCREASED LEISURE.

SHORTER WORKING HOURS. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Feb. 11. In an address at a Rotary Club luncheon, Air T. 0. Bishop, secretary of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, said that when the rest of the world, particularly the more important industrial countries, were prepared to adopt measures of reform which would mean increased leisure New Zealand would be prepared to play its part. He remarked that he would not like it be thought tTiat the attitude of •the employers’ delegates at the last Geneva conference •' (at which conference lie was a delegate) was one of active hostility to the reduction of hours as a general principle. “It was because the employers’ delegates were greatly concerned at the difficulties which would be imposed upon them, mainly in their export markets, by tho increased costs attendant upon the reduction of Hours, that they steadily opposed the adoption of a general convention at successive conferences,” said Air Bishop. “On the general question of the application of the 40-hour week as a means of reducing unemployment, I personally am convinced that tho beneficial effect would he comparatively slight and at best temporary, because the artificial stimulation of mechanisation would counteract it. The only effective method of using shorter working time to relieve unemployment is to shorten the working life.”