THE WAIPA POST. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. FRIDAY, 10th JANUARY, 1936. INDUSTRIAL HOLIDAYS.

Waipa Post, Volume 52, Issue 3705, 10 January 1936, Page 6

THE WAIPA POST. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. FRIDAY, 10th JANUARY, 1936. INDUSTRIAL HOLIDAYS.

WHETHER there is prospect of greater uniformity in the appointment of industrial holidays now that a Labour Government has power to regulate national policy is a question of more than passing importance. It may well claim attention, as it can in- truth be said that there has been in tbe past too much evasion of a question that is really not so complex or difficult as appears. The existing laws are strangely inconsistent and unsuited to public interest. Whereas the Shops and Offices Act admits the principle of local option, the franchise which decides the issue is so narrowed as to preclude the real

shopper-opinion from an expression, and the whole process is anomalous

and On the other hand, the Factories Act is more positive in that it fixes a universal Saturday observance. So there arises a condition in which one section of industrial life *s- must conform with a national code, while another section is variable acF cording to the changing mood of a poll which is not truly expressive of i the opinion which, theoretically at least, the procedure was designed to suit. The uncertainty and instability which surround the half-holiday ques- | tion are but natural consequences of i’ improper legislation. Any attempt to blend a national code enforced by Statute with a voluntary or local option system must be foredoomed to produce anomalies and inconsisten- ' cies. It is clear that either local

option should be complete or national enforcement should be universally applied. Any departure from this principle, any attempted blending of two policies which are in direct conflict with each other, must end in a greater measure of disservice than service to'the public. In parliamentary language the question has become a hardy annual. Hardly a session passes without some attempt to rectify the defects as they exist in the varying and conflicting Statutes, but so far Parliament has not shared in either the mood or the desire to treat seriously the call for review. As recently as last October the Public Petitions Committee brought before the House a report on the petition of nearly 5000 petitioners who asked that legislation be enacted providing for the taking of a poll on the question of constituting a national Saturday half holiday. The result of the Committee deliberation was a recommendation to the Government for “ favourable consideration,” but the proposal was again talked out without any action being taken. It transpired that the evidence tendered to the Committee of the House established that there was a distinct social gain in having a universal Saturday half holiday, and the Labour faction in Parliament advanced the further suggestion that with the age of leisure opening out before us the question of a five-day working week was fast becoming a matter of practical politics, so that the question of a universal observance was quickly taking on a new significance. Under the existing arrangement there arise no end of anomalies, not the least of which is reflected in the petty jealousies which are created through a condition which tends to divide the industrial world into separate groups which, in certain cases, extend to the measure of social cliques. In operation the principle of local option, even if it does embody the theoretic ideal of a democratic vote, is unsuited to the needs in that it produces a degree of instability and unrest which should never associate with business conduct. But even the democratic idealism which the vote contains is defeated when it is remembered, particularly in the country towns, that the franchise is narrowed to the borough boundaries, so that the voice of the real shoppers, the country districts, is denied a means of expression. Moreover, the changing moods of a ballot which end in a varying range of shopping hours in neighbouring towns is unsuited to public need as it gives rise to an everlasting uncertainty in the minds of the shoppers as to where and when certain days of holiday are observed. There would at least be greater security and permanency in a system which relied on a statutory enforcement and which, in its operation, was universally applied. The latest request to Parliament was for the taking of a national referendum, but that is an unreasonably round-about and costly method of making effective what is, surely, a fluty of Parliament. There seems no apt reason why a more direct course should not be followed, and that the Government should decree for a national condition which has so much to commend it. If the shelving of responsibility is to go on in the way that is proposed, and if every question must await the taking of a referendum, then, be it asked, what need is there for a Parliament at all ? It can be remembered that Parliament, and not a referendum, created the present overlapping and confusing conditions. Then, in that case, why should not Parliament itself end the mischief it has done. The Government may be expected to offer leadership in a question of this sort, and in that case Parliament should not be slow to ratify a proposal which will make uniform and universal an industrial condition better suited to the needs of industry and people.