FAITH IN LEAGUE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 6

FAITH IN LEAGUE

PROGRESS OF LABOUR

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND PEACE

(By Air Mail, from "The post's" London

Representative.)

LONDON, September 8.

"Despite the troubled times through which we are now passing, I believe firmly in a better and more peaceful future. I also believe that peace can: only- be established if it is based upon social justice," said Mr. Harold Butler, the retiring director of the International Labour Office, at Geneva; when addressing the Trade Unions Congress this week.

"When that principle becomes the guiding principle of foreign policies instead of desire for national aggrandisement we shall get a real peace1 and a strong League of Nations to preserve it. I have little patience with people who decry the League because it has not gone far enough and say that everything would have been well if there had been some European federation; which they know in their hearts is utterly impracticable in present circumstances."

Mr. Butler was also cheei)ful about the International Labour Office at Geneva.

1.L.0," he said, "is stronger in! the world than it was ten years ago, i and although we, as Europeans, are j naturally full .of anxiety for what is now happening in this Continent, it is a mistake, to suppose that the fate of an international institution like the 1.L.0. is determined entirely by what happens in Europe. What we have! lost in Europe by the absence of Ger-, many and Italy is compensated by' the! presence of the United States. | U.S.A. A FULL MEMBER. "Last. week," he continued, "I was! officially informed that President Roosevelt had signed the first four ratifications of our conventions author- I ised by Congress, whicb makes. the United States a full member of the 1.L.0. in every sense." Looking over the record; of the 1.L.0. since its foundation, Mr. Butler said he was astonished, not by the poverty, but by the magnitude of its accomplishment. , "It has not had an easy passage," he said. "Its whole career has been in a time of constant storm and stress. There have not been five years out of the 20 of its existence during Ayhich the world can be saM .to have enjoyed anything like tranquillity, either political or economic*

"We have had to face the reaction against the Liberal ideas which produced the foundation of theT.L.O. and the League. We have had to -make headway .against all the -Obstructive influences which.have always militated against any effort in the direction- of social progress and international understanding. X yXy - ' ,

"Yet, in spite pf all these handicaps, the organisation has gone steadily Tor T ward. It has built up an international labour code which now corisists of 63 conventions, of which no less than 821 ratifications have been registered."

Mr. Butler added that they had at ready held the first meeting of the permanent Committee on Public Works, which he believed would, in time, make a real contribution to working out an international technique-for combating depression. *

Mr. Butler will. Shortly take up his neAv duties as head of the Nuffield College. '*'-.'