A. —sc.

salaries of employees in commerce and industry. A special fund has been established to enable the erection of workers' dwellings. The number of persons in Chile benefiting from compulsory social insurance is 1,281,000. The Government has authorized the establishment of popular restaurants with very low prices for the benefit of workers and salaried employees. Since 1936 an Act has been in force providing for free breakfasts, paid for by the State and local authorities, for children in all schools. Evidence was given that in Chile wages and salaries had been increased, provision had been made for the erection of cheap dwellings for renting or purchase by instalments, and a plan had been prepared for the nutrition of the masses. Cuba has adopted for the sugar industry a system under which wages automatically reflect the fluctuations in the price of sugar. A certain quantity of the sugar produced is put at the disposal of the workers, its value being fixed in accordance with the current price. Cuban employers have accepted responsibility for providing fourteen days' holiday with pay per year, a shorter workingday, social insurance, &c. Certain industries would shortly be working thirty-six or even thirty-four hours per week. The Department of Labour has authority to protect workers against unwarranted dismissal. Trade-union activity is taking the character of a national movement. A decree provides a six-day week for women, prohibits night work for women, establishes certain conditions of safety and hygiene, reserves certain industrial work for women in consideration of their being excluded from other work, and requires payment of equal wages for equal work. Lithuania has divided one-third of its agricultural land into 60,000 small holdings for occupation by landless peasants and peasants with insufficient land to keep a family, and has equipped the new settlers. Laws have been promulgated establishing contracts of employment, labour inspection, fixing minimum, wages, and instituting sickness and accident insurance. Twelve days' holiday per year is provided for workers. Under consideration is old-age and invalidity insurance, and the establishment of a fund for the erection of workers' dwellings, to become the property of the workers. This fund would be provided by the State, the Communes, the employers, and the workers. Only 8 per cent, of the population are agricultural workers, and 73 per cent, agricultural workers and farmers. Weekly rest, holidays with pay, sharing of workers in profits, and technical education have been recognized in the new constitution of Venezuela. An Act of 1936 deals with contracts of employment, collective agreements, minimum wages, work of domestic servants, work of women and children, hygiene, safety, night work, and employment exchanges. Social insurance is compulsory, and covers occupational risks, invalidity, maternity, old-age, and death. Greece has introduced and extended the system of collective agreements to salaried employees and industrial workers. The agreements have the force of law and are revised in their minimum rates every ten months, with periodical adjustment to the cost of living. They have resulted in the abolition of very low wages, and have influenced an upward trend in all wages and salaries, with great increase in purchasing-power. The eight-hour day and forty-eight-hour week are applied. Overtime is authorized in only quite exceptional circumstances. A recent promulgation fixes the hours of work at seven per day and forty-two per week for certain office workers. Social insurance has been established to cover sickness, old-age, invalidity, and death. Two separate insurance funds have been established to cater for handicraftsmen and business people respectively. A new institution has been set up to study the utilization of workers' leisure. Summary of Speech on Director's Report delivered by Hon. H. T. Armstrong, New Zealand. The speech which the principal New Zealand Government delegate (Hon. H. T. Armstrong) delivered during the debate is summarized below : — New Zealand, which he had the honour to represent, while only a small country, and perhaps further removed than any other from the centre of the world's activities, was, in proportion to its population, one of the most productive in the world. His Government was keenly interested in the work of the International Labour Organization and believed that, properly utilized, it could be a power for good in the world, and that was why New Zealand was fully represented for the first time. However small might be the assistance New Zealand could give to the work of the organization, New Zealand deemed it a duty to do its share in raising the standard of living and working conditions of the people who did the useful work of the world. Referring to the evidence in the report of a return to prosperity, he expressed the hope that the educational work of the organization would be such that the world would not again be plunged into unemployment, misery, penury, and want when there was an abundance of the good things of life to supply the needs of the human family. He gathered that, while there was a substantial reduction in unemployment figures, that reduction was not so great as should be expected from the increased volume of production in nearly all countries. This was only further evidence that the application of science to industry and the development of modern machinery enabled the world's requirements to be produced with a lesser number of workers, which in turn demonstrated that the shortening of hours of labour was a common-sense proposal to help in solving the unemployment problem. In New Zealand the forty-hour week was already operating in most of the industries and in the Civil Service. Saturday work had been eliminated where at all possible, and wages had been restored by legislation. As the result of all the measures taken, workers were now in jeceipt of higher wages for the forty-hour week than they had received for the longer working-week. Employers had feared ruin, but experience had proved the opposite. The right had been restored to workers to have disputes concerning wages and conditions referred to arbitration. The Factories Act and the Shops and Offices Act had been amended to remove unfair conditions of employment. The Workers' • Compensation Act had been amended, improving greatly the benefits to injured workers and their dependents ; maximum rents had been largely regulated by Act of Parliament. For the first time in New Zealand legislation had been passed fixing minimum rates of wages and liberal paid

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