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(Letter No. 25)

LABOUR

The labour article in the original Covenant (Article XX) merely bound the parties to the establishment, as a part of the League organization, of a permanent Bureau of Labour, in furtherance of an effort to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour in the countries of the League and those with which they should have commercial and industrial relations.

Before the revised Covenant was adopted, the Commission on International Labour Legislation, appointed by the Peace Conference, had submitted a report recommending the establishment by the League of a permanent organization for the promotion of international regulation of labour conditions. With that in view, there was substituted for Article XX a new Article XXIII, reading as follows:

"Subject to and in accordance with the provisions of international conventions existing or hereafter to be agreed upon, the members of the league (a) will endeavour to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour for men, women and children both in their own countries and in all countries to which their commercial and industrial relations extend, and for that purpose will establish and maintain the necessary international organizations; (b) undertake to secure just treatment of the native inhabitants of territories under their control; (c) will intrust the league with the general supervision over the execution of agreements with regard to the traffic in women and children, and the traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs; (d) will interest the league with the general supervision of the trade in arms and ammunition with the countries in which the control of this traffic is necessary in the common interest; (e) will make provision to secure and maintain freedom of communication and of transit and equitable treatment for the commerce of all members of the league. In this connection the special necessities of the re

gions devastated during the war of 1914-1918 shall be in mind; (f) will endeavour to take steps in matters of international concern for the prevention and control of diseases."

The proposed International Labour Convention which is to be a part of the treaty of peace, a supplement to the League Covenant, seeks to accomplish the objects recited in Article XXIII through the medium of a permanent organization, which shall consist of a General Conference of the representatives of the respective powers and an International Labour Office. The General Conference is to be composed of representatives of states members of the League, chosen in a somewhat novel manner: Each nation is to have four delegates, two representing its government, one representing employers and the other representing working people. These delegates are to vote individually, not as a national unit. The International Labour Office is to be under the control of a board of twenty-four members, again to be chosen in a novel and complicated manner. Twelve shall be representatives of the governments, six shall be elected by the delegates to the

Conference representing the employers, and six by those representing the working people, Of the twelve government representatives, eight shall be designated by the powers which are of chief industrial importance, and four by the powers selected for that purpose by the governmental delegates to the Conference, excluding the delegates of the above mentioned states. No one of the parties, together with its dominions and colonies, shall be entitled to nominate more than one member of the governing body of the International Labour Office.

The International Labour Office is to collect and distribute information on all subjects relating to the adjustment of international conditions of industrial life and labour, and particularly on subjects which are proposed to be brought before the Conference in connection with proposed international conventions. The Conference may formulate and submit either recommendations for national legislation or regulation by the respective powers, or proposed international conventions to become treaties binding upon the respective parties. Provision is made for

enforcing by economic measures any convention which shall have been ratified, but not properly carried out, by any nation. Complaints of this character may be submitted to investigation by a commission of inquiry or by the permanent court of international justice of the League of Nations. Machinery is provided, whereby a state which fails to carry out its obligations, or to enforce a convention which has been ratified, may be subjected to economic measures to compel it to do so. But no nation shall be asked or required by the Conference, as a result of the adoption of any recommendation or draft convention, to diminish the protection afforded by its existing legislation to the workers concerned.

The extent and scope of activities of this proposed organization is indicated by the programme adopted by the Commission itself for the first meeting of the Conference, to be held in October next. It involves the application of the principle of an eight-hour day or forty-eight-hour week, prevention of unemployment, employment of women before and after child-birth, at night, or in unhealthy processes, and the employment of children.

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