SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 1868, 12 March 1913, Page 7

SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

To the Editor. Sir,—As a ratepayer I am greatly interested in the agitation on foot at present, to alter the half holiday from Wednesday to Saturday. This j to my mind as a ratepayer and one of the olddest settlers of Palmerstoii North I consider to be one of the most injurious steps our town could take. Property would depreciate, and many other ill effects would be produced. At present, we have, I am told some £2OOO a month coming to our town from employees engaged in the flax trade, and much of this money is spent in our town on a Saturday afternoon and evening. Most of our hard working dairymen with their families look upon Saturday as their half holiday (being the end of the week) and they come to town on that day to do their business and seek their pleasure. As any one knows dairying is drudging work, and naturally these workers look for a suitable day upon which they can cease from their labours temporarily, and seek an opportunity to obtain a little pleasure and recre- 1 ation, and Saturday appears to be the day most suitable to them for this purpose, and it is on this day that most of their purchases are made. If the holiday is changed, it will mean that the farmer cannot make a break in the middle of the week, and the result will be that he will find it hard to hold his family together, and if a farmer cannot hold his family, it will be almost impossible for him to run his farm successfully. My advise is as regards tramways, and motor buses, to let these matters wait until the halfholiday question has been settled,, for the simple reason that if Saturday is declared the half holiday, property will at once go down in value, to the extent of from 20 to 25 per cent and all ratepayers therefore will be unwise to commit themselves to further rates. Take for example Nelson, this town tried the change to Saturday for one year, and I am told that within two months a strenuous endeavour was made to revert to the usual half holiday. I understand this town has now adopted its former half holiday. Let it be clearly understood, that when an alteration has been declared, no change can then take place for at least one year, and it is of no use closing the stable door after the horse has gone. As regards Feilding, this town (through the removal of our sale yards into the country ), has reaped the benefit of our loss, to such an extent that it now has one of the best stock sales in New Zealand as against ours, which has fallen off so as to be classified as almost one of the worst. At one time we had here two market days, namely—Thursday and Saturday. Thursday has been taken from us (having gone to Feilding) and now there is an agitation to also take away our remaining market day, Saturday. You may rest assured Mr Editor, that if Saturday is declared the half holiday, Feilding citizens will be quite shrewd enough to allow their town to retain Wednesday, for they would readily perceive that our loss would be their gain. Once mors Saturday would certainly suit a very high class select trade which in one parcel would sell £IOO of goods as against the small man's £5 order, but wliy not close on Saturday afternoons and allow a fre'e hand to the other smaller struggling shopkeepers, who wish to please the working classes such as the flax millers, the working farmers and the community im general, and the ratepayers who do not wish to see their property depreciated through such a change. My advise is as a working man myself, let the storekeepers study those who support them, by bestowing their patronage on Saturdays at a time when it is most convenient for them to attend a well lighted town to do their purchases for the week end, after having gone trough a week of toil.—l am, etc., RATEPAYER.