The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1903. THE HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 179, 29 July 1903, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1903. THE HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION.

For the eausc that lacics assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

.The question' of a compulsory halfholiday on Saturday.is exciting a great amount of interest throughout the colony, and meetings are being hold in all the larger town?, to encourage "or oppose the Saturday closing movement. We have always o-jvon our support to any legislation which appeared to us to promote flic interests of the majority of the public, more especially of the wage-earners; but we do not hesitate to condemn the present bill on both theoretical and practical grounds. Wo have already dealt with its clauses in detail, and we will now be content to comment upon it in a more general way, more especially with reference to the -agitation that is now going on in Auckland in favour of compulsory closing on Saturday afternoon.

It. must, be admitted that the legal enforcement of a half-holiday, though we believe it to be justifiable, involves a very serious interference witli the personal a rill private liberty of a large section of the community. No Factory Act or Eight Hours' Act, no other industrial enactment is so sweeping and arbitrary in its action as the Half-holiday Act. Other forms of labour legislation limit a man's conduct of his business with respect to his employees. This Act alone interferes directly with his right to work for himself. Jt is one thing to decree that a mini may not. employ hands beyond a certain number of hours or that he must dismiss them at a fixed time. Tt is quite another matter to declare when he shall not be allowi-d to do any work himself. Yet this is precisely what the Act which provides for a compulsory half-holiday undertakes to do; and avc repeat that nothing but the clearest proof that the interests of the great majority of the people are.promoted thereby would justify so deliberate an infringement of what seems to be a man's natural right to work for himself when and where and as he is inclined.

However, we believe that the compulsory half-holiday is justified in the only way in which legal interference with personal liberty can be justified, by the plea of public interest. The essential principle of constitutional democracy is that the will of the majority must prevail in all matters affecting the general welfare; and we hold that the compulsory halfholiday confers a genuine benefit upon the country as a whole. At the same time we should not blind ourselves to the fact that such arbitrary interference with

private action should bp regarded by our legislators as an exception, not as a precedent or a rule. Admitting the extreme and far-reaching nature of this experiment, we ought to safeguard public interests as carefully as we can by administering the law in the least arbitrary fashion that can .be devised. Tt is from this point of view that we think the demand for compulsory closing on any fixed day is altogether mistaken and unwise. The compulsory half-holiday can be defended by an all-powerful argument-—the appeal to '"'the greatest good of the greatest possible number." But no such case has yet been made out for the arbitrary enforcement of the Act on any given day. We need not recapitulate the arguments that we have previously employed to prove that the closing of all shops throughout the colony on Saturday would entail most serious inconvenience, more especially upon people in suburban and country districts. Employees who get the half-holiday on other days in the week can get all the sports and exercise they require by taking the trouble to organise themselves properly. This has been amply proved in the Southern cities, where eve7i interprovincial competitions have been arranged for these ''week-day" athletes. We do not advocate late hours on Saturday night, and some such restriction as the 8 o'clock closure lately proposed'in Wellington might be found beneficial. But it is obvious that if all shops are to be closed at the week end., when wages are available for marketing, the smaller shopkeeper will lose heavily. Without easting any reflection on shopkeepers or their assistants as a body, or upon other classes of workers who are now in the habit of shopping on Saturday night, it is obvious that the inducements to excessive drinking and dissipation would certainly be vastly increased by compulsory closing on Saturday; and we think there is a great deal to be said for the argument that if other public places of business are '-'shut down" on Saturday afternoon, hotels should be closed tooMore particularly from the standpoint of the country folk and the small shopkeepers, we feel that there is too strong a case made out against the compulsory Saturday half - holiday to justify any further arbitrary interference with the small degree of personal and private liberty of action which retailers and tradespeople at present enjoy. We have said that in questions affecting* the public welfare the appeal must ultimately be. to the 'opinion of the ™™i« ns a whole. There does not seem

We have said that in questions affecting' the public welfare the appeal must ultimately be. to the 'opinion, of the people as a whole. There does not seem to be any good reason why we should not

have recourse to some expression of popular, feeling on this subject. What is ton prevent the introduction of the principle of local option here? .It is clear, from the diversity- of the sentiments expressed on this subject throughout the colony, that commercial .conditions vary widely in different districts, and that a general rule which might apply to one town would be altogether oppressive and unjust in the next. It should not be difficult to arrange for a periodical popular vote upon this question, on the lines of the present local option poll upon the liquor trade. If the majority of the people in any given district demand that all shops shall be -compulsorily closed on Saturday. let them have their way. But till the wishes of the people''have been consulted we think it would be highly injudicious for Government to endeavour to eonipel the whole .colony, to adopt a course'of action, whiehis already optional to those who desire it, and which is manifestly at variance with the convenience and'the interests of at least a large proportion of the general public.