INTERNATIONAL LABOUR.

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 56, 28 May 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR.

A LETTER FROM GENEVA. MR E. J. RICHES WRITES HOME. ou \v4ll remember my promising to write and tell you somethin* about the International Labour Office in Geneva It is a big office with a staff of about 400—nearly 60 different nationalities, including one New Zealander (me) —and is doing a tremendous amount ol valuable research on Labour questions. It is certainly doing a great work—to my mind the most important work that is being done by the League of Nations—a work which is of incalculable. value to labour in all countries.” This is the opinion of Mr E. J. Riches, late ot Canterbury College, and now in the International Labour Bureau. Geneva, expressed in a recent letter to Mr George Manning, Christchurch secretary of the Workers’ Educational Association.

“Geneva is a remarkable international centre: in fact it is practically a standing international conference, with changing personnel and changing subject matter. And the fact that statesmen and experts of all countries are brought together and enabled to discuss (heir problems freely is tremendously valuable. I enjoyed being present a*t tlie meeting of the council of the League of Nations and seeing Stresemann, Briand, Chamberlain, and so on, and am looking forward to t&e Economic Conference. This will be very interesting and important: in my opinion it will be the real disarmament conference. “An Australian member of the International Labour Office, Mr Caldwell, is going home on leave in a few months, and I am planning a lecture tour in New Zealand for him. He will visit Christchurch, and give a lecture on the work of the International Labour Organisation.

“I notice particularly here the lack of information on New Zealand Labour questions, and I should he very pleased if you could suggest any New Zealand periodicals which would he worth gelfr>r iu for mat ion of this kind.”