REFORM NEEDED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19480, 12 November 1937, Page 5

REFORM NEEDED

GENEVA CONFERENCE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR REPORT BY MINISTER /DELEGATES CRITICISED 1 (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. That there should be a change in the system of representation at the International Labour Conference at - Geneva is one of the conclusions reached by the' Hon. H. T. Armstrong, Minister of Labour, who was Government representative at this year’s gathering. In an extensive report of the proceedings, occupying 65 pages, Mr. Armstrong deals with the business transacted and gives impressions of his first visit to this great world gathering of 430 delegates and advisers. “After a newcomer to the conference has overcome an initial impatience with the unweildiness of an international gathering, and his first fears 6f the hopelessness of persuading some : countries who are not always the. smallest ones to the acceptance of any reforms, he becomes reconciled,” states Mr. Armstrong, “to the longer view that this gradual process is creating written standards of social and industrial ethics step by step, as each year shows areas of new ground made* firm by reasonable accord of international thought. This is probably the most useful purpose served by the organisation. “When each reform is adopted by the conference it usually Has before it the experience of some country or countries more advanced than others in that particular field. Some additional ones follow, when the seal of a draft convention has been placed upon it, and the process will continue, however slowly, until eventually those countries which have not adopted that particular reform are left in an isolation as noticeable as was the temerity of those which took the first step forward.” Duty to Assist Progress New Zealand, a comparatively advanced country, could not, in the Minister’s opinion, without disregarding its wider duty to assist progress in countries less fortunately situated .than itself, hold itself aloof from the International Labour Conference on the score of having nothing much to gain from it. A better attitude for a country like the Dominion to adopt is to consider how much it can assist other countries by its attendance at the conference. What Mr. Armstrong considers a serious weakness is that many employers’ delegates decline to take part in the consideration of certain subjects. All member States are required to pay the expenses of non-Gov-ernment delegates, New Zealand s being Mr. E. J. Dash, the workers’ delegate, and Mr. W. E. Anderson, the employers’. .No doubt, says Mr. Armstrong, it was contemplated that those delegates would observe their obligation by contributing constructive work to the conference, but in connection with the committee dealing with conditions of the textile industry, the British employer member, occupying the position of vice-president of the textile committee, stated that, apart from the employer member of the United States of America and of France, the employer members of the committee would refrain from discussing -and from taking part in the drafting of, or from voting on, any single article as it came up for examination. The New Zealand employers’ delegate was not a member of this committee. Dominion Representation Mr. Armstrong adds: “They could have given much useful help in the framing of a convention. It is equally beyond question that, having accepted nomination to the conference, with a knowledge of the business to be done, having accepted election to membership of the committee, and presumably having accepted from their Governments payment of the usual travelling and subsistence allowances, it was the common duty of all members of the committee to give all possible assistance towards framing the convention on the best lines. It is clea that if such methods of discharging the duty of delegates to a conference were resorted to by other groups, the whole time of the- conference would 'be wasted, and nothing would be capable of achievement. “Repetitions of such incidents must necessarily raise in the minds of Governments questions as to the value of paying from the public funds the expenses of delegates who do -not discharge the duty which they assume in accepting nomination.” Mr. Armstrong mentions his intention to discuss with the Government the local question of New Zealand s method of representation at the conference.