Untitled

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 414, 9 May 1871, Page 2

"We lately commented on the movement among the drapers' assistants, for shortening the hours of labour. We are greatly gratified to learn that general sympathy has been given to the efforts of the young men and young ladies who desire a little time for rest and recreation and improvement. We now plead for our butchers and our

bakers. "We learn that an agitation is commencing in favour of relieving the employes in these two branches of business from unseasonable weary hours, which are really unnecessary. There are peculiarities in the duties of both bakers and butchers that are regarded by many as necessitating untimely hours; but to this opinion it should be a sufficient reply that these difficulties have been overcome elsewhere, in every case in which the movement was gone into in good faith by employers and employed. It seems to us that there should be nothing in Auckland to specially prohibit the application of a system that has been found to work so well elsewhere. It may seem a little thing to some, what is convenient or inconvenient, beneficial or otherwise, •to those employed by them, if only the work is done. But there is not a business in the world in which the employer is not largely in the hands of his servants ; and, although the work may in every case be performed according to stipulation, the enlisting of the sympathies as well as the hands and heads of the employed in the performance of duty, may make a most important difference in ultimate results. The man who will show a willingness, and even a desire, to relieve his employes of needless burthens, cannot fail to enlist such sympathies, and to benefit from the increased interest created. The businesses of baking and butchering are not exempt from a principle that is found invariably in the relations of employer and employed, and which is wholly in accordance with human nature. Looking at the matter then in the light of self-interest alone, we do trust that the employers will in this case show a cordial sympathy with the movement of the men. We understand that the employes have undertaken to show the way in which this boon can be conceded without impairing in the slightest degree the performance of work ; and we do not believe that among all the butchers and bakers of Auckland there is one who is such a churl as to wantonly oppose a movement which can do no harm to himself, and may be the means of doing inestimable good to others.