week proposal of the Italian Government now being discussed by
a conference of governments', employers', and Trade Union representatives convened by the International Labour Office at Geneva. Here, it might seem, is an energetic effort, characteristically Italian, to apply forthwith an instalment of the plan advocated by the apostles of Technocracy. It assumes that we can overcome the difficulties which have hindered the general
ratification of. the 48-hour week, and go one better with the object of distributing the available work among more workers, and so checking unemployment. In planning for the future it is assuredly well to foresee the conditions under which labour-saving machines will demand less and less labour from the human workers. But as a remedy against immediate unemployment, would the proposal produce the desired results ? At the precise moment when employers, unable to meet their production costs, are demanding that wages should be brought down pari passu with the reduced cost of living, they would be required to move in the opposite direction and increase their wages—for the workers make it clear that they expect the same wage for a 40 as for a 48-hour week, This
added cost of production would be likely to have the effect of putting more men out of work, and so defeat the avowed aim. It is, of course, arguable that the prime necessity is to create consumption demand, but that requires a courage, and involves palpable risks, which make it certain that no international conference will reach agreement at present on that basis.
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