"NO APPEAL"

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 93, 18 October 1915, Page 8

"NO APPEAL"

RESTAURANT-WORKERS' HALI 1 - HOLIDAif. In The Post on Saturday was published Mr. E. P. Bunny's reply to the protest by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees' Union against the decision of Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M., in dismissing a case against H. Brice for failing to give his employees a" half-holiday from 2 p.m. on Saturday. Mr. Bunny suggested that the union's proper course would have been to appeal to the Arbitration Court instead of seeking to, invoke Ministerial aid. Mr. E. J. Carey, secretary to the union, has now written further to the Minister for Labour (Right Hon. W. 3\ Massey) as follows: — "Mr. E. P. Bunny, solicitor, has written you objecting 'to our having brought under your notice as Minister for Labour what he considered to be the wrong decision of Mr. Riddell, S.M., in the recent case, Inspector of Awards v. H. Brice. Mr. Bunny states that the decision may be appealed against, and suggests we should have urged such an appeal rather than have written you recording our protest against the decision. The simple fact is, and Mr. Bunny should know it, there is no appeal to any higher Court in this case. The decision, faulty as we think it is, has to stand. "We again submit that the decision amounts to a setting aside of the award and the Statute. The law prescribes a half-holiday from 2 o'clock for workers in restaurants. Mr. Riddell's judgment in effect say; the holiday need not be given from 2 o'clock on busy days. The breach of the law was proven by your officers. It was admitted by the Magistrate that the breach was there, but the case was dismissed. Had a conviction been recorded the law would have been upheld, and the matter ended from the union's point of view. "With no right of appeal against the decision, and to safeguard the interests of our girl workers, we wrote you net 'to subject our Courts to political influence,' but to point the wrong and the gravity of the decision. In answer to Mr. Bunny's other references : We claim the right to criticise the judgments of our law Courts provided the criticism is always impersonal. Such criticism makes for the sounder administration of the law and checks haphazard and faulty decisions. In the end it promotes in the minds of the community greater respect for and abiding confidence in the integrity of our British judiciary."

At 1.30 p.m. to-morrow Messrs. C. W. Price and Co. are selling the contents of 10 rooms at the mart, 60, Lambton-quay. It is expected that the 1000 ladies volunteering as collectors on Empire Red CroM Day will attend at the Council > Cb*mb«r* to-night, *t 7^46.