SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 41, 18 February 1911, Page 3

SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION.

Sir, — I hope you will, through your columns, give immediate and emphatic denial to Mr. F. Hey ling's, misstatement, viz.-, that shops now observing the Saturday half-holiday will, if the poll proves successful for those in favour of Wednesday, have to close on that day. Clause 2, section 2, allows the shopkeeper to choose Saturday if notice is given to the Labour Department, no matter what day is selected by the public for the closing of shops, 'in Christchurch the Thursday half-holiday was carried by an immense majority, but many places of business still continue to close on the Saturday. Many hundreds of shopkeepers in this city are against any change, and reference to Australian papers show that the alteration in the larger towns in Australia has not been the unqualified success that our labour agitators would have us believe, and strong; efforts are being made to havo the law altered. Ninety per cent, of the shopkeepers in this city are of opinion that the public will show the same good sense that was exercised in Christchurch, Dunodin, Nelson, etc., and vote for_ the mid-week holiday for shops. This will still allow the "big &hopS to close Saturdays (and open, Christmas month, on Saturdays, when business is brisk), and suit the convenience of the great shopping public. It is .only failto point out that if the Saturday closing were carried, shopkeepers would this year lose their biggest day's business, viz., Christmas Eve, winch, for shopping, falls on Saturday, 23rd December. — I am, etc., HERBERT SEATON. 17th February, 1911.