The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1889. THE HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2103, 9 April 1889, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1889. THE HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION.

What about the weekly half-holiday for Ashbarton ? Some time ago—months ago m foot— a memorandum agreeing to close on Wednesday ' (or Thursday) afternoon was carried round among our professional men, our merchants and oar tradesmen, aad was we believe signed by all but one or two of them, and there the matter seems to have ended, for we havejheard nothing more about it. Yet surely the promoters of this excellent^ movement have not lost faith m their own proposal— surely it does not need an elaborate argument to prove > that a half-day a week can be spared from "business and devoted to j recreation v?if/h the greatest benefit to all concerned.. The idea is not by any means a new" one, for as a contemporary ("Land and Sea") pointed out the* other day so long ago as a.d. 958, before the time of the ancient Saxons, King Edgar made an order that labor ' should cease at midday on Saturday till daylight on Monday, while there is said to be still unrepealed a statute of the reign of that sensible old Dane King Oannto which says— "Let every Sunday's feast be held from Saturday's noon to Monday's dawn." These -venerable old forbears of ours, both Saxon and Dane, then, evidently held to to the doctrine of the modern proverb that " All work and no play Makei Jaok a dull boy." And though their knocking off work on Saturday afternoon may, and probably w*b, meant to lead to a better observance of the Sabbath rest on . Sunday, yet from that very point of view also, a weekly half-holiday be it Wednesday or Thursday may strongly be advocated. For the sound mind m the sound body which was the Roman summum bonum is only possible when there is reasonable recreation as well as rest, and those who sacrifice the latter to gain the former on j Sunday, would be deprived of all excuse for Sabbath-breaking if a weekly halfI holiday afforded them the means of I taking a run into the open, and diverting themselves by shooting, hunting, fishing, cricket, football or other sports and exercises. And who can doubt that everybody would be the better of a spell of this sort of thing once a week ; who but mmld bo the happier as well as the healthier for it ; who will venture to say that all the business that has to be done and is to be done m Ashburton cannot be done m five-and-a-half days ? Not a soul. What then about our weekly half-holiday we once more enquire. Timaru, Waimate, Geraldine near by, to say / nothing of lots of other places farther off have the weekly half holiday m operation. Why not we ? Is it because one or two individuals among the whole community decline to joinrin ? If so then it seems, to us that the promoters of the movement are far. too easily discouraged. Surely they could get all the rest to agree to close despite the one or two non-contents. Let these remain open and let us see who they are, and we venture to think the public will protect those who close against loss of business by abstaining from shopping at the open establishments on the half-boliday. { Let it be tried, and if it works out as we expect it will then tho dissentient minority (a very small one) will speedily find that it does'nt pay to keep open, and will put up their shutters aad take holiday like the rest. We write wholly* unselfishly, for, holiday or no holiday for other people there can be none for us, but we are not like the fox m the fable who wanted all the other foxes tails cut off because he had left his own m the trap. On the contrary, while editors and printers have to work all the year round, high days and holidays not excepted, they think that tho fewer the professions and trades doomed to tho game eternal round the better.