HOTELS AND TOURISTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19759, 13 October 1938, Page 7

HOTELS AND TOURISTS

CONCILIATION COUNCIL HEARING OF DISPUTE (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Conciliation Council proceedings were commenced to-day before the Commissioner, Mr. M. .1. Reardon, in an application for a Dominion award in the unlicensed hotels dispute. The morning was spent in exploratory discussions, an agreement being reached in a number of minor clause:; and provisions. Mr. W. J. 'Mountjoy, for the employers, suggested at the outset that the council should adjourn till after the elections as some of the employers found the unsettled conditions on the eve of the poll unpropitious to negotiations.

Mr. Young, for 'the union, objected stating that, rightly or wrongly, the union considered the employers wer; trying to stall the matter until after the election. Personally, he did noi think the election would affect the prospects of a settlement one way ">i the other but. nevertheless, he could not agree that an adjournment was necessary.

The discussions accordingly were proceeded with. When some mention was made of the tourist trade, tli'J commissioner expressed the opinion that whatever merit there might bein New Zealand as a tourist resort, the average man at Home could not afford 10 come here as his annual holiday was only a fortnight to a month or possibly six weeks. There were very few people of leisure and it meant too much anyway to a man to lose five months and then only have a flying run through the country. He thought New Zealand was wasting its time trying to encourage tourist trade from further away than Australia.

Mr. Young remarked that when NewZealand had an aeroplane service that would get them out in three days, we would be all right.

At another stage when the council was discussing the standard of tourist hotels in New Zealand, Mr. Young remarked of tourists: 'Ask them to pay for extra service and see what happened. At the Chateau, they charge them (is extra for a bathroom. Thev were foaming at the mouth for bathrooms until they were asked to pay an extra six "bob" and then they forgot all about their comfort and cleanliness and all the rest of it."