BRITISH UNEMPLOYMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 December 1922, Page 8

BRITISH UNEMPLOYMENT.

PETITION TO PARLIAMENT. By Telegraph.--Press Assn.—Copyright. ‘London, December 6. Tn the House of Commons Mr. Dansbury presented a petition on behalf of the unemployed marchers, asking permission for their representatives to attend at the bar of the House, and present the grievance of the ’2,000,000 unemployed. Replying to Sir J. norton Griffiths, Mr. Ormsby-Gore said he had presided that morning for the first time over & meeting of the Overseas Settlement Committee. He would do hie utmost to accelerate the progress of Empire settlement schemes. In reply to Mr. Cadogan he said the policy of the Empire Settlement Act was regarded more as a conctructive developing of the resources of the Empire, and inter-imperial trade, than as a means of dealing with the present abnormal unemployment in Britain. Mr. Cadogan urged that, in view of the shortage of man-power in the Dominions, the ■ Empire settlement should make a central feature in the development of the Empire’s resources. Mr. Ormsby-Gore said he entirely agreed that the emigration of women and juveniles was a matter to be pressed. in every possible, and submitted to the Imperial and economic conference. ■Mr. Barlow, Minister for Labour, announced that pending further ronsideration it was not proposed to introduce legislation legalising the 48 hours’ working week on the lines of the Washington Conference. He was not aware that most European countries had already legalised the 48 hours’ week. The convention had only been ratified by a very small number of countries such as Greece, India and Czecho-Slovakia.