The I.L.O. and Social Security
In spite of all the dislocations and upheavals of war the Inter- national Labour Organisation not only survives but continues to make substantial contributions to reconstruction. The' Conference of the Organisation which opens at Philadelphia on April 20th will discuss a draft convention on various problems of social security, with a view to safeguarding the pension rights of foreign workers recruited for employment in a foreign country. It is of course desirable for any one country that every other country should have a social security scheme of its own, but there is a special problem that will arise from the situation of persons who have been forcibly or otherwise removed front their own country to take up work in another. There are no fewer than 5,000,000 foreign workers who in 1943 were employed in Germany or in countries controlled by Germany, and since then the nufnber has increased. The general object of the draft convention is to provide that persons who have become or may become liable to compulsory insurance outside their country of residence shall have their rights maintained. Though up to the present it is mainly Germany who has recruited foreign labour there may be other mass migrations after the war—for example from Germany—of persons sent to restore war damage. While a comprehensive scheme within each State providing social security for its members is the first desideratum, there will be seriou' gaps if provision is not made for some millions of displaced workers. This is essentially an international problem, the kind of problem
which the has proved itself so competent to handle by adopting draft conventions for the signature of countries willing to co-operate.
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