The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1895.

Timaru Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 1659, 12 January 1895, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1895.

The statutory special meeting oi the Borough Council, to appoint the day on which the weekly halfholiday shall be observed m Timaru, m accordance with the provisions of the Shops and Shop Assistants Act, 1894, is to be held on Monday evening next. The resolution which will be proposed at the meeting has already appeared m our advertising columns. It names Thursday m each successive week during the year 1895, as the day for the halfholiday. Fortunately there has been no difficulty m fixing the day m Timaru. Closing on Thursday suits most of the shopkeepers, and the half- holiday has become a recognised institution. What is now being done here is merely m formal compliance with the Act. In many other places the half-holiday question has caused and is still causing a good deal of trouble and fjietion, because of differences oi opinion amongst various sections o] the shopkeepers. As there is substantial agreement m Timaru, the form of the advertisement m regard to the matter is perhaps ol small importance. Still, we deerr it advisable to point out what appears to us to be an irregularity There is no direction m the Ad that the " special resolution " shal be published beforehand, and where there are differences of opinion such publication might be inconvenient What has to be given public notice of is "a special meeting" of the Borough Council, and the interpretation clause makes every motior adopted at such meeting " a specia' resolution." The advertisement which appeared m our columns did not m so many words call " c special meeting" but merely saic " a meeting," and then went on tc recite the proposed " special resolution," as though that were the only motion that could be dealt with Our view of the matter is that ai the meeting any Councillor car propose any day of the week for the half-holiday, and that the Council are not tied down beforehand tc adopt Thursday or no day at all However, as we before said, the point does not seem of much importance m Timaru. No doubt the published resolution will be carried and it is unlikely that the validity of the proceedings will everbe questioned. On a former occasion we alluded to another point m connection with the working of the Act and we see by pur exchanges thai the same question has cropped up m Wellington. A iew days ago a deputation m that city waited upon the Minister of Labour and asked his opinion as to how clerks employed m shops were to be classed under the Act; were they to be regarded as shop assistants or as office employes? Mr Kirkcaldie, one of the deputation, said that " it was a matter of colonial importance that it should be known whether their clerks were to be treated as office clerks, such as were employed m banks and insurance offices, and on ordinary days leave off work an hour before closing time, and without any option to have a half-holiday on Saturday, or whether they were to be classed as shop assistants." It is quite clear that the Minister had no right to answer the question. It is not his place to interpret the law. That is the business of the courts when the necessity arises. But Mr Reeves told the deputation that "he would interpret the Act to mean that all clerks employed m connection with shops were virtually shop assistants. It seemed to him to be somewhat straining the Act to interpret it m any other way. Take, for instance, the class of small shopkeepers where a man had an assistant who kept the accounts and also helped at the counter. Because that man did some clerical work, to hold that he should have a half-holiday on Saturday, m addition to the halfday on which the shop closed would be ridiculous. He would instruct the officers of the Department not to interfere m any way with shopkeepers who gave their clerks and other assistants a holiday on the day on which they closed their shops." This interference on the part of the head of the department is establishing a very bad precedent. We are not prepared to say whether Mr Reeves' opinion was right or wrong, but we do say that he is not the proper authority to decide. The fact is that the Act is very loosely drawn m some respects, and this confusion between shopassistants and office employes furnishes an instance m point.

It is said that Mr Thomas Sturrock, of Leith, who is still living, was the real inventor of the Christmas card. About the year 1840 he supplied a design of a laughing face, with the motto, " A Gude New Year to ye a'."