21 MAY 1921, Page 24

The International Labour Office, established by the Treaty of Versailles,

has begun to issue—as the Treaty directs—the International Labour Review (Geneva, 3s. monthly), which will deal with problems cf industry and employment of inter- national interest. We have received the first two numbers, dated for January and February, but delayed apparently by the difficulty of getting an English periodical edited and printed in Geneva. In the first number M. Albert Thomas explains the objects of the Labour Office, of which he is the Director. Mr. Oudegeest discusses the international trade union movement, and Mr. Sidney Webb describes " The Process of Amalgamation in British Trade Unionism." There are some useful notes on production and prices in various countries ; the American figures suggest that the cost of living is not more than double as much as it was in 1914, whereas in Italy the workman's weekly budget is more than four times what it was before the war. In the second number Sir Thomas Oliver writes on

industrial hygiene. Mr. Stewart; the American Commissioner of Labour Statistics, discusses " The Daily Tonnage Output of the Pick Miner "—the hand worker as opposed to the machine. tender—and points out that the apparent decline in output per man is due to the rapid increase of the men who are not hewers, but who are employed underground in various capacities. As the mine-galleries grow longer, more men are required for getting the coal from the working-face to the shaft, and thus the output seems to diminish.