Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, NOV. 24, 1932. REDUCED WORKING HOURS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17945, 24 November 1932, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, NOV. 24, 1932. REDUCED WORKING HOURS

When the World Economic Conference meets early next year its general objective will be to find a way out of the universal depression. Consequently every measure even remotely connected with the crisis will have to be studied. The financial questions, which arc uppermost, include credit policies, exchange difficulties, price levels, and movement of capital. Economic phases deal with production and interchange of commodities, tar ill’s, imports and exports, trade barriers, quotas, etc. A third and vitally important aspect, however, is the relationship between labor and indust m, involving social as well as economic consequences, and. in this connection it is interesting' to note that a new philosophy appears to lie creeping over the world. Hitherto the ideal sought lias been production'and more production. Man’s progress and prosperity depended upon the sweat of his brow. To-day wo are told the work of the world is limited. Thore isn’t enough to go round and what there is should be divided up. So it is that when the Economic Conference meets it is likely to have presented to it by the International Labor Office of the League of Nations proposals for the establishment of an eight hour day and a five day week. The Italian Government, which is seeking to promote a live day week among the Fascist corporations, has taken the initiative and asked that a plan be drafted for submission to the Preparatory Commission now framing the agenda of the coming conference. Already many European countries are stated to bo experimenting, on a limited scale with this reform. Specialised industries, not affected by foreign competition, have been put on a live day week in Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany. The results, it is claimed, show that unemployment .is to a large extent a cause and not a consequence of the aggravation of the world crisis, arising out of disequilibrium between production and consumption. Time-saving devices, rationalisation, mass production and other innovations have changed the face of industry completely. M chincry, in some instances, has supplanted at least SO per cent, of the mail power needed in pre-war industry. Hence unemployment and underconsumption of the world’s products. Twelve years ago the International Labor office at its Washington Conference sponsored the 48-hour week which many countries have adopted as part of their national policy. A few months ago at its sixteenth assembly the Labor Office raised the question of an international 40-hour week, and decided, at tho instance of the Italian representatives, to submit to the Economic Conference a programme embracing (a) technical progress—-reduc-tion of the working day, or preferably, of the working week; maintenance or • increase of existing wages, (b) problems of procedure —whether it is desirable to start with general measures, or specifically, with certain industries or by collective agreements. In the French Parliament a bill providing foT a 40-hour week has already been introduced, and if the movement is applied internationally, or at least amongst industrial countries, France will be the first to accept, the reform, according to the Minister for Labor, M. Ihilimier. Empowered by the emergency decree arbitrarily to reduce working hours to 40 a week, the German Government has been instructed by President von Hindenburg to take active steps to alleviate unemployment. Mixed commissions of employers, trade union leaders and Government representatives arc negotiating collective agreements amongst specified industries, .In C/.eclto-Slovakia, despite the heavy opposition of the agrarian party, t ho social policy committee of I lie Chamber of Deputies lias placed the 40-hour week question upon us agenda. Reports from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Poland, and France indicate that the movement is progressing rapidly. In the United Stall’s President Hoover lias sol up a group of industrialists to consider the question and meantime tho authorities at Washington plan to grant one month's furlough annually, without pay —this being equivalent to a fiveday week-—to Fedoral employees, thus saving £20,000,000 annually. It .is indeed deplorable x that the world should have come to the pass that it has to consider adjustment proposals of this sort. 'The old economists who believed in hard work and thrift will surely

turn in their graves.’ The new proposals, says a Canadian writer, “fail to take into account certain contingencies that the old economists never forgot. Labor is a factor in production, but only a factor. It is not the whole thing. Capital is necessary, too, and if Mr. Micawber’s sixpence is not saved, there can be no capital. It is all very well to encourage expenditure, with the idea of consuming the surplus of production and clearing the shelves of warehouses for new products. But if there is to be expenditure, there must be production, and if there is to be production there must be a saving somewhere —an accumulation of capital. And this is true, whether the capital is private or state capital. Production presupposes consumption. That is its end. It presupposes capital and labor. These are its essentials. Production, consumption, capital, labor

-—each has its place in flic circle, and if any one of them fails, there will be trouble. The old housewife always saved a big of dough as the starter for her next batch of bread. The modern producer must, in the same way. have n bit of the wealth created, in the past and saved from consumption to help him with his new production. The advocates of the shovter dav and shorter week base tlteir plan oil the assumption that there is a surplus of all commodities. This isn’t true at all. There is a demand, but purchasing power is lacking, and as purchasing power itself can only come front commodities- —the farmer buys with his wheat, the spinner with his yarn, and so on—it will not help) things a big to reduce work hours and so the quantity of commodities available for tlie purchase of other commodities. If the supply of commodities can be maintained while the hours of work arc reduced, giving more leisure instead of employment, that will lie all to ttie good. Lut here another problem will be created -the proper employment of leisure and the provision of the means lor that employment. ’ ’