394 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

anxious that their industries should not be injured by the com-
petition of ill-paid and overworked labour in other countries.
The Organisation has worked as a lever by which the labour
standards in backward countries have been brought nearer to
those prevailing elsewhere. Since the War, western countries
have witnessed a notable decrease in hours of labour, and many
detailed improvements in conditions of work for women and
young people, and in the regulation of dangerous kinds of work.
This progress could not have been registered if advances had not
also been sejcured, through the I.L.O., among the poorer workers
of Asia. Nor is success measured solely by the number of ratifi-
cations obtained. No Great Power has yet fully ratified the famous
Washington Convention for a forty-eight hour week in industry;
but the existence of the Convention lias stimulated movements for
shorter hours, and many workers in western countries do in fact
work 48 hours or less per week.

The 1932 slump concentrated the Organisation's" attention on
unemployment; facts were collected and recommendations made
which will be of much use as soon as the Governments of the
world are willing to abandon their present policy of restricting
international trade. At the same time, the project of a 40 Hour
Week was discussed, and in 1935 a General Convention to that
effect was adopted. There have as yet been few ratifications, but
the Convention is influencing opinion and policy.

The topics discussed by the Conference are, of course, highly
controversial, but for that very reason the Organisation has
commanded world-wide interest and respect. Several Govern-
ments feel that Conference is sometimes.too eager to improve
conditions, without regard to what is practicable; but they do
not refuse their co-operation on that account.

THE PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE.

Before the War there was an arrangement by which nations

could submit disputes to a Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

[Each State which had taken part in establishing the Court made