H.—ll.

OCCUPATIONAL RE-ESTABLISHMENT. By the Occupational Re-establishment Emergency Regulations, Amendment No. 1 (Serial number 1941/91), the definition of " military service " was amended for the purpose of ensuring that the regulations apply both in respect of forces raised in New Zealand or by the Government of any territory forming part of His Majesty's dominions. A further amendment extended the definition to cover continuous whole-time service as a radio operator where such service is for the duration of the war only and commenced after the date of the Shipping Radio Emergency Regulations 1941, which require the carrying of additional radio operators on ships in the New Zealand Mercantile Marine. The Occupational Re-establishment Emergency Regulations, Amendment No. 2, merely makes clear the intention that a worker in the armed forces for a short period be entitled to the benefit of increases in remuneration. There were 18 prosecutions during the year for infringment of the regulations, penalties amounting to £79 Is. being imposed. TRAINING OP WORKERS. Under the Auxiliary Workers Training Emergency Regulations 1941 (Serial number 1941/23) a Dominion Council representative of workers and employers and Government Departments was established to supervise training arrangements. Schemes have been introduced in connection with the engineering, footwear, and carpentry trades. The question of training tool and gauge makers is being investigated. These schemes envisage a relatively short period of intensive full-time training for selected workers who have perferably some previous knowledge of the industry. In each trade and town where schemes have been introduced local Councils, also representative as above, have been constituted to supervise the administration of the scheme. As at the date hereof, 266 workers had been trained and placed in the engineering industry, while another 49 were in course of training. In the footwear trade, 87 workers had been trained and placed, while 28 were in course of training. In the carpentering trade, training of 23 workers has been completed, while training of 70 others is in process. Some difficulty is now being experienced in securing sufficient trainees of the desired types. Fortytwo men returned from overseas stervice and a further 33 demobilized from the home forces has been accepted for training. INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE. Because of the European situation the twenty-sixth session of the International Labour Conference convened for June, 1940, was postponed. Subsequently a working centre for the Organization was established in Canada, and thereafter, with a view to safeguarding the fundamental democratic character of the Organization and ensuring direct and uninterrupted communication with its member States, plans for a session of the Conference were examined by the International Labour Office. As a result and in view of the support promised by Governments, a Conference was convened at New York for 27th October, 1941. The agenda was a Director's report dealing with the relations between the war and social reconstruction policy, also a report on " Methods of Collaboration between the Public Authorities, Workers' Organizations, and Employers' Organizations." It was not contemplated that the Conference have normal constitutional powers or that it adopt International Labour Conventions, the purpose being to afford an opportunity of surveying world social developments in the present critical times, also present and future responsibilities of the Organization. That the decision to convene the Conference was a wise one is demonstrated by the representative character of the gathering, thirty-four States members of the Organization being represented, the delegations in twenty-two cases including representatives of Governments, employers, and workers, representations of Governments being unusually strong. The Conference would have been regarded even in normal times as one of the most iufluentially-attended meetings ever held under the auspices of the International Labour Organization. At the final session, which was held at the White House, the President of the United States, who addressed the delegates, formulated the conviction underlying the work of the whole Conference that " the victory of the free peoples in the war against totalitarian aggression is an indispensible condition of the attainment of the ideals of the International Labour Organization " and the determination of free men everywhere to contribute to that victory " to the uttermost limit of their power." He then proceeded to express the conviction that the victory will be a barren one unless the post-war world is governed by the principles foreshadowed by the Preamble to the Constitution of the International Labour Organization and developed in the Atlantic Charter. A series of resolutions was adopted by the Conference, but of these two were principal—viz., one endorsing the Atlantic Charter, and another concerning post-war reconstruction. These resolutions were as follows :—• " Resolution endorsing the Atlantic Charter. " Whereas by the Atlantic Charter the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom have -announced eight common principles in the national policies of their respective Governments on which they base their hopes for the better future of the world ; and "Whereas these principles have been approved by all the Allied Governments; and " Whereas the fourth, fifth, and sixth of these principles are as follows:— " Fourth, they will endeavour, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity : " Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing for all improved labour standards, economic advancement, and social security :

13