The Timaru Herald MONDAY, MAY 6, 1907. LAX ADMINISTRATION.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13278, 6 May 1907, Page 4

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, MAY 6, 1907. LAX ADMINISTRATION.

The Acting-Premier took up a perfectly correofc attitude on Saturday when lie de- _ clinsd to assure the deputation which waited on him in reference to the half holiday question, that the Jaw would not be suspended even for the few months that must elapse until Parliament meets. As he told those who made that request, "no Minister has a right to say that the law shall not be enforced," and the fact that autocratic and illegal behaviour has not been, unknown in tlia administration cf the colony's laws in the .past, is no reason why a bad principle should be perpetuated now. W-e ana not inclined to give the Government any great credit for this sudden determination to sea that the statute is no longer trailed in' the dust, for as some of .-their. ,owh-. supporters in the Press are pointing 6ut, 'they have fol" .tlie jbe.st part of a year acquiesced in the suspension of the , law which had. been going on since, the Act of 1901 made it practically obligatory upon factories to. observe a Saturday half-holiday. Evidently the Parliament of that time was just as prepared as Mr Hall-Jones thinks the House to-day is, ,tp order a general cassation of business upon Saturday afternoon, and although the Act of. 1901 applied only to women and to persons under 18 years of age, the practical effect,- as Mr Penrose told the. Acting-Premier on Saturday, would be to compel a general closing. There seems to-be little doubt that that is precisely what the Government —or those who ara prompting them in .this matter—are aiming* at. Mr Hall-Jones seems to have done his best to persuade the Timaru. disputation % into 'accepting the w&ek-end half holiday, but the Mayor's rejoinder about it-lie certainty of a mutiny made him change his tune and revert to local option . in holidays. The Minister. for Labour • himself appears to be p, little surer of ? is-, own mind than Mr Hill-Jones is, for- in a telegram to the. member for Waitaki last; week, he stated emphatically that ho Would be "no party .to permit anything j which will tend to take away the fetiturdiy half holiday provided for factories." The 1 only point on wliich Mr Millar is pre-pared-to compromise is the possibility of making a distinction between a factory propfer&ind a workroom attached to a shop, but even on that point, he declines to continue the long-standing suspension, of the Act. "If you Once,,admit the right of a Minister to suspend a la\V or any j part of a law," he .telegraphed ,to Sir William Steward; " then you grant to the Ministry of the day tlie autocratic power to suspend the - operation of any law." Sir William Steward -Was Obliged, as everyone must : be; to. admit the. accuracy -r.f ; Mr Millar's'contention;. " I entirely concur,-' he replied, "that a Minister's duty is to administer the law, 'and that its amendment is the' function of Parliament." We have little doubt that if the law had been honestly administered in the past, it would have been amended long ago in 'lie direction of permitting each locality to arrange its holidays to ; suit its own requirements, but we hope that even at the expense of some temporary inconvenience, tlie country -will uphold' the Minister in his attempt to reintroduce a decent system of administration. If people are agreeable to have the law ignored as it has been in the past, they need not be surprised at) any encroachment upon their liberties.