SOCIALIST CONFERENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 February 1919, Page 4

SOCIALIST CONFERENCE.

DEMANDS AND REQUIREMENTS A l6ng LIST. Received Feb. 11, 8 pm. Berne, Feb. 10. The Trade Union Congress endorsed the Socialist Conference's demand that representatives on the League of Nations be elected by Parliaments and not by Cabinets. The Congress further demands the creation of a labor council representing trades unions and professions, empowered to enforce decisions on the constituent states without the latter's ratification. The resolution recognises this as a means to the creation of a supernatural , sovereignty. jfkThe conference debated the territorial commission's resolution proclaiming th« right of nations to settle their own destinies, and declaring that populations and protectorates of colonies must ho protected by the League of Nations, which should educate the populations for selfdetermination. in the course of the debate Herr Meuller, a German .Majority Socialist, while admitting the atrocities in the German colonies, demanded the return of th« colonies to the republic. Air. Henderson moved a resolution »pecif'ying the minimum requirements for an, international labor charter, enforceable by the League of Nations at tho conclusion of peace. A long list of requirements iucludc* the prohibition of the employment of children under fifteen; continuation schools for workers between 16 and 18; restriction of the hours of work of women to four daily; establishment, of a forty-eight-hour week; the abolition of night work, except necessary technical work, when night work must be highly paid; the protection of the homes ef workers; the nnn-pmliibition of emigration and immigration, though u small educational standard may be imposed on immigrants; the exchange of interns.jA tional labor statistics; the international linking up of labor exchanges; the establishment of a wages board; State insurances; the appointment of a permanent international commission,- meeting annually to promote international labor legislation, and co-operating with the international labor bureau at Baale and the Trades Union Internationale, half the votes on the commission being assigned to Labor.—Times Service. "