SHORTER HOURS FIASCO.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 October 1921, Page 12

SHORTER HOURS FIASCO.

AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENT. INDUSTRIES THREATENED. Sydney, Sept. 2S. A few months’ experience of the shorter working week, consisting of 44 hour*. Which has been applied to a number of industries by a special Court constituted by the Labor Government o’f New South Wales, has created almost a crisis among manufacturers. Representative masters have declared that absolute ruination and large accessions to the ranks of the unemployed is already being caused in a. number of industries, and they declare that unless immediate steps are taken to liberate industries from the added costs which have been imposed upon them—roughly estimated at £lO.OOO 000 annually—there will be a harvest of bankruptcies. The principal objection which is raised is that the shorter week gives the manufacturers of the other States such a preponderating advantage that those of New South Wales cannot possibly compete with them, even in their own market, and that promising export trade in \arious directions has been absolutely shattered.

At one of the largest meetings of manufacturers ever held in Sydney, it was decided to represent to the Government the grave effects of the measure, and urged its immediate repeal. The well known ironmaster, Mr. Charles Hoskins, declared that in his works alone the added costs were such that they simply could not be paid. Already the firm uad been forced to dismiss some hundreds uf men, and in the near future, unles? matters improve, 500 or 600 more would have to be put offBefore and during the war the company received large orders for pipes and other goods from New Zealand, iasmania and elsewhere, but recently, nc.t- , withstanding that they had tendered at prices which did not represent half the increase caused by the awards, it had been impossible to obtain a contract. Many undertakings, lie said, which were accustomed to pay dividends of 12 per cent, or more, had already been re luc-id to 6 and 7 per cent., and were threatened with extinction.

Mr. F. W. Hughes, head of the leading firm of wool-top manufacturers, stated that at a meeting of the textile industries the previous day, it had been announced that if the 44-hour week were to continue, serious consideration would have to be given to abandoning wool spinning in Australia, in which case yarns would have to be imported from Germany or Japan or elsewhere. His own company had orders which would last eight or .ten weeks, but after that they would have to close down.