HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2381, 10 February 1915, Page 6

HALF-HOLIDAY QUESTION

.WEDNESDAY PREFERRED TO SATURDAY. (By Telegraph.—Prot» Association.) Auckland, February 9. Between fifty, and sixty shopkeepers attended a meeting to consider the possibility of having the Wednesday halfholiday restored. Mr. Alfred Moore, who occupied the chair, said he was sure that a very great majority of the shopkeepers were now in favour of restoring the Wednesday half-holiday. The matter was really one of life and death for the small shopkeeper; in the larger shops the employees were being affected in that when the pinch was felt it became necessary to discharge hands, and there was a great deal of unemployment at the present time, and he thought that the opening of the shops on Saturday afternoon would do a great deal to alienate the situation. Mr. E ; H. Thompson said that they had against them the employees, who preferred Saturday, aiid who were numerically much stronger than the shopkeepers themselves. There were people interested in sports who since the introduction of Saturday closing had. reaped a harvest,' and there were people connected with ferries, picture shows,- and many others, who, for obvious teasons, preferred Saturday closing. In view of this being_ so. he suggested that shopkeepers -might he able to effect a compromise. He thought that most of them would wiljinely close for the whole of Wednesday' if tlicy might remain open on Saturday. He proposed a resolution that the meeting was prepared to concede the whole of Wednesday as a holiday if they be allowed to Temaiii open on Saturday. He wished it to be understood ' that this was merely an exnressionof the feeling of the meeting. When put, the resolution was carried tmanimouslv. •