SLIGHT BENEFIT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20340, 12 February 1936, Page 8

SLIGHT BENEFIT

APPLICATION OF 40HOUR WEEK MR T. O. BISHOP’S OPINION By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, February 11. In an address at a Rotary Club luncheon, Mr T. O. Bishop, secretary to the New Zealand Employers’ Federation said that when the rest of the world, particularly the more important industrial countries, was 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 to be thought that the attitude of the employers’ delegates at the last Geneva Conference (at w’hich conference he was a delegate) was one of active hostility to a 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 expo.*t markets, by the increased costs attendant upon a reduction of hours that they have steadily opposed the adoption of a general convention at successive conferences,” said Mr Bishop. “On the general question of the application of the 40 hour week as a means of reducing unemployment, I personally am convinced that the beneficial effect would be 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.”