The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times.) SATURDAY, APRIL 24th, 1924. HOURS OF LABOR.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 April 1924, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times.) SATURDAY, APRIL 24th, 1924. HOURS OF LABOR.

A well-known American, Mr Clarence W. Ballon, who has been lecturing to the British Chamber of Commerce in New York, offered some flee criticism upon the question of hours of labor and the relation of the subject to the conclusion of the war. He made this arresting lemark in his address: “'How few of you know that the Versailles Treaty made the upset of the world.” And lie went on to say that because of the restrictions on labor under the treaty Germany was prevented by the s ll owes of the pen signing the treaty from being in a position to jav tip the reparations! This because the treaty enforces the eight-hour day as a principle. The treaty, as a matter of fact, has been called the charter of Labor, yet few tribute those who were responsible for weaving into the treaty such a section of far-reaching importance. Oue-thiid of that bulky document is devoted to a labor j rouaganda and in it is the decree for an eight-hour day which is now under the League of Nations the official day for Europe. It ruined Italy, said Mr Barron, when Italy adopted it. But Mussolini is redeeming Italy hv putting her back miller the policy of “work and pay." It did not ruin France for France was not industrially organised. Seventythree per cent of the people of France are on the land and they own it. They still work there twelve and fourteen hours a day. There was no eight-hour League of Nations Day for them and that is why France to-day is prosperous exce|>t in her railroads beyond anything ever before dreamed and whv she is capable of absorbing all the French Treasury Loans and can make annually ten times the amount of investments that she used to make before the war and that is why the French peasant is no longer dressing in blue smocks but in dark clothes. You do not see that on the surface. Go there and you will find it out. Germany ado) ted very gladly the eight hour day. It helped reduce her efficiency by 30 per cent. She then know that she 11:15 bankrupt and couldn’t pay France or anybody else. Mr Stinncs knew that Germany i-nn never prosper or pay on an eighthoar day. Germany is organised industrially and had to import before the war from Poland and Russia 300,000 people every fall to gather her crops. She is organised in factories industrially while France is‘organised in the home. France worked industrially by piecework. while Gerinaniy worked on

masse. The eiglit-hour day of the League of Nations, asserted Air Barron, lias destroyed Germany industrially. Stinnes knew it ami said deliherately, “"lien the Germans are ready to work eight hours for themselves and two hours for the government, then some of us can pile up the credit and the money, and begin to nut Germany on her feet.” That is the real point in the international relations. It remains to be seen how the Dawes report will help overcome the economic -troubles. Tt will lie essential, certainly, for all to work wholeheartedly in the endeavour to recuperate. The real aid to financial success is work and production. Limiting hours unduly retards progress, for there is a line over which no country may pass. The primary producer, the professional man, the individual business man, —if these wore to limit their hours where would the country drift to? Yet the wages man c’aims to limit hi.s hours, and as ho obtains one concession to seek another. It is this pulling down process which hampers development, and leaves the country in the trough of stagnation, loaded by the burden of heavy debt.-. Sooner or later there must come some awakening to the serious state of affairs, but the ]>eople should see to it that they do not take over long to realise the trend of events, or they may he too late. The longer the delay the more difficult it will ho to retrieve the situation. -