THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1928. THE SHOPS AND OFFICES ACT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20320, 31 January 1928, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1928. THE SHOPS AND OFFICES ACT.

The law amending the Shops and Offices Act will come into force to-morrow. Fears have been expressed during the past few days that it will be found that the new provisions will have an effect in some respects that was not intended. It is likely enough that this will prove to be the case. The Act, which was amended last session, consists of 73 clauses and two schedules. The new Act, which is to be read in conjuction with the original Act, contains 3b clauses, and the language of it is highly technical, —necessarily so, the Attorney-general implied in the Legislative Council, in ‘ order that a conflict in awards may be avoided. This may be an excellent reason foi the manner in which the law is drafted, and the members of the legal profession at any rate will appreciate It. The shopkeeper, however, is liable, for his part, to contract a headache in an unaided effort to unravel the mysteries cl the law regulating his business. One of the unexpected consequences of the amendment of the law is that the fruiterers are threatened with the necessity of discontinuing the sale of flowers. This, it is apprehended, will be the effect of an amendment in the definition of the term “florists.” This amendment, it was explained by the Minister of Labour, has been made in terms of an agreement between the florists and seedsmen, under which, so that the florists may be exempted from

tho provision of law concerning thb weekly half-holiday, they arc to abandon the sale of- small gardening tools. That the fruiterers should be affected through the mere alteration of the definition of a business other than that in which they are mainly engaged is certainly strange. Whether they are actually affected, or not, is a question upon which, in view of the intricacy of the law, no one who is not practised.in the interpretation of statutes would volunteer an opinion. Unquestionably, no such effect as is new apprehended in this particular was anticipated in Parliament. The provisions of the amending measure that were chiefly in controversy there related to the payment of “ tea money ” to shop assistants and to the hours of employment of milkmen. The fruiterers are, however, afforded some consolation in the inclusion in the law requiring the registration of fruitshops, in which two or more persons are engaged, wltethcr as assistants or not, in the name of one person as proprietor and classifying as a shop assistant every person engaged in the shop, except tho proprietor and his wife. Tho section in the Act that deals with this matter is drawn in. general terms, but it may be assumed that the real object of the provision is the protection of the European fruiterer against the competition, increasing in this city, with which, the Chinese have confronted him. A fresh restriction imposed by the law is one under which the shopkeepers who at present compete with tobacconists are to bo prohibited from maintaining this practice unless they observe the same hours as tobacconists- Whether this provision will put an end to the illegitimate trade that is done in the sale of smoking requisites, may be doubtful. The imposition of restrictions of ouo kind and another, in respect of which the convenience of the public is disregarded as frequently as it is respected, is apt to be productive of clandestine trading. It is entirely desirable that tho law should limit the hours of employment of shop-assistants, but the attempt to confine particular trades within watertight compartments is never likely to be entirely successful.