UNEMPLOYMENT

Wairarapa Age, 5 April 1928, Page 2

UNEMPLOYMENT

LABOUR WITHDRAWS FROM N.S.W. CONFERENCE. PARTIES DEFINITELY AT ODDS. OPPOSING CONTENTIONS/ SYDNEY, April 4. The Unemployment Conference collapsed owing to the withdrawal, at the Labour Council’s direction, of the non-rural delegates. Before withdrawing they read a manifesto, issued on behalf of the council, declaring that no good purpose could be served by attending the conference, which, it was stated, had only concerned itself in. endeavouring, so far as the employers were concerned, to discover ways and means of increasing production without added cost. The’manifesto contended that in view r.r the present state of over-pro-duetion upon a world scale, any lowering of Ibe eosts of production by an increase in the output per unit would result in the intensification of the problem. The concept put forward at the conference that the workers were holding back the development of industry by, demanding higher wages than the industry could bear, was erroneous and misleading, and that a continuance of the conference would not be of any benefit to cither party. Representatives of the employers pointe! out that the union delegates had not put forward any tangible solution of the unemployment problem, but had expressed doctrines amounting to Communism. The retort from the union delegates was that, while they did not favour Communism, a change in .the social order to provide for a co-operative system would be welcomed.—-(P.A.)