AUCTIONEERS’ HOURS.

Wairarapa Age, 28 May 1936, Page 5

AUCTIONEERS’ HOURS.

DISCUSSION IN THE HOUSE. ON SHOPS AND OFFICES BILL. LABOUR JOKERS HOLD FORTH. (By Telegraph—“ The Age” Special.) WELLINGTON, May 27. What the Opposition regarded as the impracticable nature of some of the restrictive conditions regarding hours iivthe Shops and Offices Bill provided the most important topic for preliminary discussion when that measure reached its Committee stage in the House of Representatives to-night. Particularly was it stressed that auctioneers would find it impossible to conduct stock sales in the country within the limits imposed. “He wants to conduct his business in the dark” humorously suggested Mr. J. A. Lee, when Mr. H. 8. 8. Kyle (Ricearton) had presented the ease for the exemption of stock sales. Mr. Lee suggested that an auctioneer would always leave just before six, even if he came back. (Laughter). “Those hard-worked auctioneers,” he exclaimed scornfully. The Hon. H. T. Armstrong: “They only carry a hammer and a book.” Mr. Lee suggested that it was quite a good idea to enable people to see the goods they bought, for even Mr. Kyle would not buy a valuable animal in the moonlight. Then the poor farmer ought to be allowed to get home in the twilight and the Minister ought to be given a measure of appreciation for limiting office hours, because 40 hours surely was enough in a week to talk insurance.

The Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates suggested that Government members ought to give more serious reasons why the Bill should apply to auctioneers. Everybody knew how they went from daylight till dark in summer, while the farmer had to start before daylight to get his stock to sales. Mr. Armstrong: “Have you ever seep a sale at night!” Mr. Coates: “Yes, at 7 o’clock, and his job is not finished when the hammer stops.” Mr. Armstrong pulled this line of discussion up when he explained that the: Bill did not apply to stock sales, but to auctioneers' offices, while the Hon, F. Langstone told Opposition critics that he had heard the same old arguments forty years ago when hours were reduced. Auctioneers had things in their own hands to make better arrangements if they got together. “But,” he concluded, “there's such cut-throat, cannibalistic competition they won't do it” (Laughter).