FREE TO CHOOSE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18551, 28 November 1925, Page 4

FREE TO CHOOSE.

SEASIDE GROCERS* HALFHOLIDAY. LABOUR DEPARTMENT REBUKED Either Saturday or Wednesday may be observed as the weekly half-holi-day by qtocbts in Now Brighton and Sumner, under the judgment delivered by the Court of Arbitration yesterday. In the Judge'a memorandum a rebuke was administered to the Labour Department for its failure to enforce the provisions of the award just expired. The memorandum is as follows : "The principal question left to the Court was whether the shops in. the boroughs of Sumner and New Brighton should observe the Saturday half-holi-day, which is the statutory half-holi-day in the remaining part of the Christchurch City and suburban area. The Court has left the grocers in those boroughs free to observe either Saturday or the statutory closing day (Wednesday) as the half-holiday. "When the last award was made, the Court decided, in view of the evidence given as to the keen competition between grocers in the city and suburban area, to accede to the request of the Christchurch Master Grocers' Association, the grocers at Sumner and New Brighton who employed assistants, and the grocers assistants' union, to provide a universal Saturday half-holiday within the city and suburban area. The circumstances under which the present award is made are different, inasmuch as the Christchurch Master Grocers' Association does not now press for the general observance of the Saturday halfholiday, and the master grocers of Sumner and New Brighton are now divided in opinion. It was stated by one of them, in giving evidence, that this changed attitude was due to the failure or neglect of the Department of Labour to enforce the provisions of the expired award, in spite of the fact that the Full Supreme Court had sustained the disputed provisions.

Inaction Improper. "The Court is of the opinion that the inaction of the Department of Labour by whomever authorised was improper, and a derogation from the authority and standing of the Court, which had heard all parties concerned, and had given its decision in accordance with the law and the evidence, after fully considering all the circumstances."