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6. NEW ZEALAND REPRESENTATION ON COMMITTEES New Zealand was represented on Committees as follows : Selection Committee : Mr. Fernie, Mr. Barton (substitute). Committee of Workers' Welfare: Mr. Duncan (substitute), Mr. Fernie (substitute), Mr. Barton. Committee on the Co-operative Movement: Mr. Taylor. 'Committee on Agricultural Wages : Mr. Barton (substitute). 'Committee on the Organization of Man-jwwer: Mr. Fernie (substitute). 7. CREDENTIALS None of the credentials of the delegates or advisers attending the Conference 'were challenged. The Conference Committee dealing with credentials noted, however, that four delegations were incomplete. The rules concerning the powers, function, and procedure •of regional Conferences convened by the International Labour Organization provide in Article 1, paragraph 1 (a), that regional Conferences shall comprise " two Government delegates, one employers' delegate, and one workers' delegate for each State or territory invited by the International Labour Organization to be represented at the Conference." The Committee drew the attention of the Conference and of the Governments of the countries which were represented in it to the obligation placed on these Governments to comply with the provision mentioned above so that delegations attending the Conference should be full delegations and that each should comprise two Government ■delegates, one employers' delegate, and one workers' delegate. 8. DISCUSSION OF THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL'S REPORT The Director-General's report, in sober but compelling language, painted a picture ■of an Asia caught in a net woven from the intertwined strands of low production and high and increasing population. Expressed statistically, the food supply of the region in 1947-48 was only 95 per cent, of the pre-war level (1934-38), but the total population in 1947 was 9 per cent, greater than before the war. The report states : The persistent shortage of food in the food-deficit countries in the region, such as India and Japan, the almost universal shortage of important consumers' goods such as textiles resulting from the slow pace of economic recovery and the unsettled political conditions, and the failure of money wages in the case of substantial groups of wage-earners to keep pace with the rise in the cost of living all suggest that standards of living in the countries of Asia and the Far East have deteriorated from the already low pre-war levels. The effects of declines in production have been aggravated by the steady increase in population. The report went on to lay down the conditions necessary for the evolution of ■economic and social policies to remedy this state of affairs. There must be an increase in national wealth ; development of agriculture deserves high priority ; in schemes for industrialization there is ample scope for public as well as private enterprise, indigenous as well as foreign capital, and large-scale mechanized as well as indigenous handicraft industry. The factors hindering recovery were stated in the following words : Recovery in agriculture has proved much slower than had been anticipated, and industrial expansion has been limited by persistent shortages of basic raw materials and of capital goods, by transport bottlenecks, and by the inadequate supply of technically skilled personnel. The slow recovery in the -exports of some products and the deterioration in the terms of trade in respect of others have sharply limited the funds available for financing capital imports. Severe inflationary pressures have raised •costs and discouraged saving. All these factors have been seriously aggravated by the political instability which has effectively checked economic development in such countries as Burma, China, Indo-China, Indonesia, and Malaya. The result has been a further widening of the gap between the ■undeveloped Asian countries and the industrially advanced countries.

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