BUSINESS AND HOLIDAYS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8635, 22 November 1889, Page 3

BUSINESS AND HOLIDAYS.

Writing on the question of "extra holidays," the Sydney Alor.dni/ Heiaid of November 9, says :—": — " The patience of the business portion of the community seems to have run itself out on the subject of public holidays. There is a growing opinion that this is a matter that is being very much overdone, and those who are interested directly in the regular processes of trade object to have those processes arbitrarily interfered with on every frivolous occasion. The correspondence we have published puts this side of the question very fairly. A letter has been addressed on behalf of the New South Wales Employers' Uunion to the Government on the subject, remonstrating against the unnecessary pecuniary loss inflicted on its members and the community generally by the proclamation of these supplementary holidays. These complaints are echoed from Melbourne, where the conference of employers from the various colonies thought the matter of sufficient importance to make it one of the important subjects of discussion. This expression of opinion is certainly wide enough to arrest attention, and the actual complaint made is reasonable enough to command redress. A public holiday suspends business for the time, makes a break in the regular course of trade and mercantile intercourse, and interrupts whatever is going on for the moment. It was probably to guard against the abuse of this kind of thing that the measure was put on the Statute Books providing for ten fixed holidays in the year, bo that banking business should receive as little check as possible on that accouut. No one objects to the stated holidays. It is true that they are more numerous than in England, but our genial climate and out-door habits have a good deal to do with that. The objection is to the abuse of the power vested in the Government nnder the same Act, to appoint special days as holidays from time to time either tliroughout New South Wales or in any part thereof. A ridiculous advantage is taken of this to proclaim public holidays for agricultural shows and other such inadequate occasions, until tho frequency of these skeleton festivals becomes irritating to those who have something else to think of besides mere amusement. To-day is one of the fixed holidays, and as it commemorates tho forty-eighth anniversary of the birth of the Prince of Wales there is no objection to it. But the proposal to make Monday a holiday also is objected to, and so is the proclamation of the 27th, for the opening of the ne » Town Hall. Tho principle on which the objection is based is sound, and though it may not bo effectual to mar the completeness of the coming civic ceremony, it may have some effect in checking the indiscriminate proclamation of public holidays in the future."