SHOPS AND OFFICES ACT.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14099, 19 July 1911, Page 11

SHOPS AND OFFICES ACT.

AN IMPORTANT POINT. . (PBJESS ASSOCIATION TELEOHAM.) WELLINGTON, July 18. A case of considerable imjiortance to employers throughout New Zealand came before Mr W. G. Riddell. S.M., in the Magistrate's Court to-day. The Labour Department proceeded against Horace J. Archer, draper, for having employed a shop assistant after 9 p.m. on one night during the week. The facts were admitted, the case being brought merely as a test as to the interpretation of the statute. Mr H. H. Ostler appeared for the Labour Department, and Mr Weston for tho defendant. '

■Mr Ostler said that Sub-section 1 of Section 3 of the Shops and Offices Act provided that shop assistants shall not be employed in or about any shop, if situated in a combined district, after 1 p.m. on tho afternoon of the statutory closing day, or 9 o'clock on the evening of ono day or 6 o'clock on any other day. The ; assistant in the case before the Court had been employed at 9.15 p.m. The provisions of the Shops and Offices Act of 1894 were .that every shop had to close at a certain hour, and every employer had half an hour's frace before any offence was committed, n 1905 the scheme of the Act was amended, and it was no longer provided that the' shop should close at such an hour, but that every employee should fet off at such an hour. Although the legislature changed the scheme of the Act, they still kept the provision which stated that an offence was committed if an employee was worked more than half an hour after closing time. Mr. Weston said that two interpretations had been sought to be placed on the Act-by tho Department within the last two months. The first was limitation of work done away from a shop: the second adopted the present position as set out by Mr Ostler. It Mr Ostler's contention was correct, and Sub-section 3 must stand apart from Section 3. it -would have been very easy for the Legislature' to have made that clear. Sub-section 3 said: "If any assistant is employed at any work in connection with tho business of any shop." Surely those words conveyed any act done in connection with the business. If it was intended by Subsection 3 that it was an offence'for an employer not to close his shop at 9 o'clock -and send his assistants away, then there was no necessity for the sub-section. If the legislature wanted to specifically provide a penalty and wanted Sub-section "J to stand and not be modified, all they required to do was to strike out the words "later; than half an hour." Decision was reserved.