SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10960, 1 May 1907, Page 4

SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

.-,'■. — - — .. .♦, — — ■ Interviewed at New Plymouth, m regard to the Saturday half-holiday question, the Hon. J. A. Millar pointed oui to a News representative that the Factories Act laid it down hard and. fast that a Saturday, half-holiday mu^t be observed. Byi some means that provision had been suspended m some eighteen or twenty towns m New Zealand, to the extent that they, were allowed to observe the half-holiday on other than Saturday. During the last two months, said M-• Millar, he had been called upon to pdminister the law m a, iair and impartial manner. The other day he had been interviewed by a deputation, which asked him to suspend the operation of an award of the Arbitration. Court. He had also been asked to suspend the ope ration of certain clauses of the Shops and Offices Act. He had declined to, do either, and had pointed but to tlie deEutation tha;t by granting their requests, c would be doing an illegal act, and also that they were asking for wh*t must be a dangerous practice— that the Ministry should have the right to suspfend at will any law passed by Parliament. „ .'-Later* on," said, the Minister, "I received a notification that I myself was allpwjiig the law to be broken by permitting the Saturday half -holiday provided: -for under the Factories Act not being observed m certain places. 1 then said that so long as T was Minis, ter of the Crown, the law must be fairly and- impartially observed, and if it was found that the ' la w ' acted m any way oppressively, it would be for Parliament to amend the law" So long, therefore, said Mr Millar, as the Saturday half-holiday for factories remained the statute law, he was determined to see that' the law was carried out, He had accordingly,, and as a result of these representations to him, notified the officers of the Labor Department to issue a circular to all those who had been vlserving other than Saturday as the halfholiday m factories, and m future Saturday would be observed until Parliament altered the law. v. ;^ y J .'.: -,':■;