NEW ZEALAND TO-DAY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 82, 23 April 1937, Page 12

NEW ZEALAND TO-DAY

"Industrially Contented" MR. ARMSTRONG'S CLAIM "New Zealand is one of the most industrially contented countries in the world at present," said the New Zealand Minister for Labour (Mr. H. T. Armstrong) to a pressman on his arrival at Sydney by the Awatea. Mr. Armstrong, who was welcomed by the New South Wales Minister for Labour and Industry (Mr. Dunningham) is accocnpanied by Mrs. Armstrong and his private secretary (Mr. W. J. Shanly), and is on his way to Geneva to represent New Zealand at the International Labour Gonference, beginning on June 3. He will leave Sydney by the Otranto in order to reach London the night before the coronation. Mr. Armstrong said that the Labour Government in New Zealand had restored wages to pre-depression levels, and had instituted a 40-hour week. The maximum hours for shop assistants were 44 a week. "When we announced the shorter hours,' ' said Mr. Armstrong, "shopkeepers could see nothing but red ruin at the end of it, but they were never more prosperous than they are now. The effect of the legislation was the opposite to what they feared. I do not think the manufacturers in New Zealand would depart from. the 40-hour week now if they could. Most of them had not exercised their right of ap* peal against the 40-hour week." Mr. Armstrong said that legislation would be brought dowa in New Zealand, possibly nest sesgion, to provide for universal superannuation. There would be insuranee l'or ©verybody against sielcness and old age. The Minister admitted that there had been several strikes in the Dominion since the Labour Government had come into office, but he declared that their importancd had been unduly magnified. "I do not know a country in the world more free from Strikes than New Zealand," he said, The rate of application of new social ideas in New Zealand, he said, would have to be dependent on a commonsense regard for the fact that, as a result of past political policies, New Zealand 's econoaaic structure was not evenly balaneed as between primary and seeondary industries. Mr. Armstrong said that Australia was well represented in the New Zealand Government. Its Australian members were the Prime Minister (Mr. Savage), the Minister for " Mines (Mr, Webb), the Minister for Ptiblic Works (Mr, Semple), the Minister for Internal Affairs (Mr. Parrv), and the leader of Ihe I.egislative Couneil and Acting Minister for Customs (Mr. Fagan),