COMPULSORY-SATURDAY CLOSING

Evening Post, Volume LXVI, Issue 16, 18 July 1903, Page 15

COMPULSORY- SATURDAY CLOSING

TO THE EDITOE. Sir — Having been closely associated with the Shop Hours Bill from its conception, being one of the Secretaries who prepared and helped to circulate throughout the colony copies of the proposal some sixteen years since, and being in full sympathy with its object, I much regret the proposal of the Government to fix any day as the statutory half-holiday. The provisions of the Shop Hours Bill gives ample scope for ascertaining local preference, which as far as. possible in eveiy department of Government should be given effect to. If localities prefer Saturday no hindrance exists to stop them. I have little hesitation in saying that Saturday is the most unsuitable day for the retailers' half-holiday tha,t could be chosen. The principal reason urged is that it best suits sport, When sport becomes the business of life, rather than its recreation, it occupies a wrong position. The position of the factory hand and shop assistant is widely dissimilar. The former works with machinery, which must be kept going continuously. His half-holiday is not preceded by a late night, which alone is a great objection to a Saturday holiday. It is to the mutual interest of the rotailers that all retail trades should have the same day, for the half-holiday. How cojuld bakers, butchers, and milkmen observe a Saturday half-holiday. The proposed Bill recognises this by exempting butchers. Many reasons could be urged against the proposal, that of intereference with tho local powers being one of the strongest. — I am, etc., R. FRENCH, Wellington, 10th July, 1903.