B.—fci

The primary purpose of the UNBBA organization is relief: to provide food, clothing, and other primary essentials, to instal health services, to bring back again to the devastated countries water-supplies, sanitation, &c. Its aim, in short, is to tide the liberated peoples over the difficult period immediately following the release of their country from enemy occupation and thus to help them to help themselves. Assistance in the long term work of reconstruction will be the function of other organizations which I shall mention shortly. The third Conference was the International Labour Conference held in Philadelphia in April and May of the present year. The employees, employers, and the Government of New Zealand, and some thirty-five other countries, were represented at the Conference. Its purpose was to find out how the International Labour Organization could use the facilities that it had available and the experience of its past operations to assist in the reorganization of industry and production in the various countries of the world at the close of the war. The main purpose of the International Labour Organization is to improve labour conditions and labour standards, but its tripartite type of structure with employee, employer, and Government represented gives it an importance that could not be be given to organizations otherwise constituted. At the Conference a declaration was adopted on the steps that the delegates felt should be taken to assist the peoples of the occupied countries, but the main feature of the Conference is what is known as the "Declaration of Philadelphia." The text of the declaration is as follows: — I The Conference reaffirms the fundamental principles on which the Organization is based and, in particular, that— (a) Labour is not a commodity: (b) Freedom of expression and of association are essential to sustained progress; (c) Poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere: (d) The war against want requires to be carried on with unrelenting vigour within each nation, and by continuous and concerted international effort in which the representatives of workers and employers, enjoying equal status with those of Governments, join with them in free discussion and democratic decision with a view to the promotion of the common welfare. II Believing that experience has fully demonstrated the truth of the statement in the Constitution of the International Labour Organization that lasting peace can be established only if it is based on social justice, the Conference affirms that— (а) All human beings, irrespective of race, creed, or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic security, and equal opportunity: (б) The attainment of the conditions in which this shall be possible must constitute the central aim of national and international policy: (c) All national and international policies and measures, in particular those of an economic and financial character, should be judged in this light and accepted only in so far as they may be held to promote and not to hinder the achievement of this fundamental objective: (d) It is a responsibility of the International Labour Organization to examine and consider all international economic and financial policies and measures in the light of this fundamental objective: (e) In discharging the tasks entrusted to it the International Labour Organization, having considered all relevant economic and. financial factors, may include, in its decisions and recommendations any provisions which it considers appropriate. 111 The Conference recognizes the solemn obligation of the International Labour Organization to further among the nations of the world programmes which will achieve—• (a) Pull employment and the raising of standards of living: (b) The employment of workers in the occupations in which they can have the satisfaction of giving the fullest measure of their skill and attainments and make their greatest contribution to the common well-being: (c) The provision, as a means to the attainment of this end and under adequate guarantees for all concerned, of facilities for training and the transfer of labour, including migration for employment and settlement: (d) Policies in regard to wages and earnings, hours, and other conditions of work calculated to ensure a just share of the fruits of progress to all, and a minimum living wage to all employed and in need of such protection: (e) The effective recognition of the right of collective ibargaining, the cooperation of management and labour in the continuous improvement of productive efficiency, and the collaboration of workers and employers in the preparation and application of social and economic measures:

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