The Needs of Shop Assistants.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 72, 26 July 1912, Page 9

The Needs of Shop Assistants.

A deepening- sense of brotherhood to-day leads the public spontaneously to assbh those who, by lack ol cohesioi are prevented from helping themselves Amongst these, much sympathy must be felt for Maoriland shop-assist-ants. They have produced no 11. G. Wells, once an apprentice to a chemist and then to a draper, to voice the pathos of their struggle, for betterment, and as radical unionist methods arc not in accordance with the employers' notions of respectability, they lose continually from their ranks their more progressive clement by dismissal. Ono of tho most obvious of their present simp needs is adequate warmth- — a point pushed forward by the Canterbury Women's Institute last week. Comfortably-clad shoppers, fresh from oui-door CNcrcisc, are apt to forget the chilled :\\k\ stationary server. When Spurgeon's deacons coinjplaiued of cv pi-use in heating the Tabernacle, the preacher replied that lie did not belie-vo that persons with cold feet ever got converted. Possibly shop-assistanta might- make more proficient human beings if tho temperature of their surroundings in winter was better regulated.

If is comforting to have good laws, but even better to see them working. Did Government intend the provision of seats to bo ornamental? Tho supply is certainly inadequate and uncomfortable. An ignorant Englishwoman was inclined to think none existed at all. since dining ten years' resilience in the Dominion she had never seen an assistant sitting down.

"King Dick," as Premier, ins]M>cted rubbish tips, and our mayors poke their noses into cook-shops. These ebullitions ate praiseworthy, but we must eventually fall back upon .specialists trained in hygiene- for the security of public health. The sanitation of shops might well receive much more alicution than it does, both regularly and irregularly, in the shape of surprise visits. Hut the inspectors must be experienced and certificated men and women, keen and enthusiastic, not hali'asleep. lied Lapeism of overlapping departments must ho drastically dealt wiih and responsibility rest doJiniteJ.v on specific individuals.

The limitation of the proportion of juniors and apprentices to senior assistants, a universal half-holiday on Saturday, the abolition of the long night and better wages and shorter hours are also asked for.

The, employer can be called upon by the Defence Act to set free his employees for tho duties imposed on thorn by the compulsory training scheme. but where is tho mandate that they shall liberate tberu for far wider pro paration for citizenship under a scheme of continuation education? Our views of national service just now aro onesided, and military domination will tend to keep thorn so. Yet, as Wells says, "Education must prooede> the Socialist State" and the shop-assistant who is not seeking to improve himself will never improvo tho conditions of his class or adequately uphold tho prestige of his nation.

There is no division of a counter 't-wixt man and mail, and tho needs of shop-assistants arc our own. It is icr tho groat purchasing public, by, open insistence upon these- trifling reforms, t-o bring about their speedy realisation.