WEDNESDAY OR SATURDAY?

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 34, 10 February 1915, Page 2

WEDNESDAY OR SATURDAY?

HALP-HOLIDAY QUESTION IN' AUCKLAND. (IT KLBOBATH— PBJSS ASSOCIATION) AUCKLAND, ,9th February. Between fifty and sixty > shopkeepers attended a meeting to consider, the possibility of having the Wednesday halfholiday restored. Mr. Alfred Moore, who occupied the chair, said he was sure that a very great majority of the shopkeepeVs were now in favour of restoring the Wednesday, half -holiday. The matter was really one of life and death for the small shopkeeper; in the larger shops the employees were being affected in. that when the pinch was felt it became I necessary to discharge hands, and there ! was a great deal of unemployment at the present time, and he thought that the opening of the shops on Saturday afternoon would do & great deal to alleviate the situation. Mr. E- H. Thompson said thai they had .against them the employees, who preferred Saturday, and who were nu» merically much stronger than the shopkeepers themselves There were people interested in sports who since the introduction of Saturday closing had reaped a harvest, and . there were people connected with ferries, picture shows, and many others, who, for obvious reasons, preferred Saturday closing. In view of tliis being so, he suggested that shopkeepers might be able to effect a compromise. He thought that most of them would willingly close for the \yhole of Wednesday if they might remain open On Saturday. He proposed a resolution that the meeting was prepared to concede the whole of Wednesday as a holiday if they be allowed to remain open op Saturday. He wished it to be understood that this was merely an expression of the feeling of the meeting. When put, the resolution was carried unanimously.