Miscellaneous - This Day That Age   

dated November 27, 1957: Labour in Asia

Mr. David Morse, Director-General of the International Labour Organisation, said in New Delhi on November 25 that if the “I.L.O. is to be of any real influence in assisting the people of Asia, the I.L.O. must come to Asia, not with a set of preconceived solutions, but with a firm determination to learn and understand the needs, the desires and outlook of the different peoples of this region.” Mr. Morse, who was replying to the debate on his report in the Fourth Asian Regional Conference of the I.L.O. referred to two aspects of the Asian social problem, namely, the material aspect and the moral or spiritual aspect. On the material side, Mr. Morse, said, the prospect was discouraging. Food production, while on the increase, was not yet in many places keeping abreast of population growth; and while new capital investment in industry was increasing opportunities of employment were hardly adequate to reduce unemployment, he added. As regards the spiritual aspect of the Asian society, Mr. Morse said that “the form of society in this region through the centuries has been closely integrated with a traditional moral and spiritual view of life; and the crumbling shock to this society given by industrialisation may accordingly produce radical and unpredictable consequences unless something is done to give a new sense of purpose to life in modern industrial conditions”. Mr. Morse said that industrialisation was already undermining the old social order of Asia, and a “serious time” would come when people’s hopes would have been roused yet inadequately satisfied.

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