EARLY MORNING WORK

Evening Star, Issue 22459, 2 October 1936, Page 8

EARLY MORNING WORK

DETRIMENTAL EFFECT ON SCHOOLBOYS CHARGES AGAIHST MILK VENDOR “ I’m reliably informed that the effect of such employment on boys of tender years is very detrimental,” said the inspector of awards (Mr W. H. Cadwallader) in the Police Court this morning during the hearing of a case in which George Alfred Brookes, who was represented by Mr W. H. Carson, was charged with failing to pay the minimum rate of wages and with employing a boy under 16 years of age before 7 a.m. Mr Cadwallader said that first of all boys who were employed from 5 to 8, 8.15, or 8.30 were declared to be definitely unfit to attend school and learn during the day. A boy’s wholeoutlook on life was being altered by his being so employed. Mr Carson said that the facts were admitted, and that the defence was based on a point of law. The Inspector of Awards (Mr W. H. Cadwallader) stated that this was a case of a boy 12 years of age, who was still at primary school, being employed by defendant for approximately two years delivering milk from a van. - In the first year of his employment he was paid only 8s 6d for the year, but it was only fair to mention that four pints of milk a day were allowed his people. In the second year of his employment he was supposed to be paid 3s 6d a week, and two pints of milk a day were allowed his people. It was alleged that over the last three weeks of his employment he was not paid. The defence was based on the decisions in some Christchurch cases, in which it was apparently decided that a milk vendor was not a shopkeeper. If that were so, and he could not believe that it was, _ it would be a most extraordinary decision in view of the precedents established by Magistrates’ Courts throughout New Zealand, and by that court in particular. He argued that the boy in question came within the definition of a shop assistant. Mr Carson submitted that the charges were, in their essentials, similar to certain charges recently preferred against milk vendors in Christchurch. Defendants there were proprietors of establishments which the magistrate described as wholesale-retail -or bulk store _ businesses, and which apparently carried on business in an ordinary way as milk vendors. They were charged with a variety of offences under the Shops and Offices Act, among them being the employment of an assistant before 3 a.m. and the payment to an assistant of less than the prescribed minimum wage. To bring the alleged offences within the scope of the Act the Labour Department sought to show that the depots from which the milk was distributed were shops, and that the roundsmen in respect of whom at least some of the charges arose were therefore shop asMr Carson said that in giving judgment the magistrate held that the depots were not logically shops. The essential of a shop, the display of goods and the purchase of them, was lacking. The business each defendant was carrying on was a wholesale-retail or bulk store one. In its wisdom the legislature had covered a very wide field in employment legislation, but it was possible that it had slipped there, that there was an apparent gap in the law. One charge was dismissed, and the remainder were adjourned sine die_ to allow the department to consider whether it would take further steps. Mr Carson said that in each of the charges against the defendant an essential part of the allegation was that at the time of the commission of the alleged offence he was- “ an occupier within the meaning of the Shops and Offices Act.” To establish that the defendant was an occupier, as alleged, the department had to show either that the defendant actually carried on trade in a shop as defined by the Act, or, alternatively, that he was presumed to be an occupier consequent upon the business carried on by him coming within the scope of the section which provided for the regulation of trading by hawkers or other persons by retail otherwise than in shops. The defendant was a milk vendor who obtained portion of his supply of milk from a wholesale supplier, whose premises be used as a base, and part from his own farm. Mr Carson submitted that it was impossible for the department to establish that the base used by the defendant was a shop within the meaning of the Act. He also submitted that unless the department could establish as a matter of fact that the defendant did not use the base to which reference had been made it could not invoke the provisions, of the section relating- to the regulation of trading by persons by retail otherwise than in shops. He also contended that if the matter were to bo decided upon the effect of this section, such section contemplated only an itinerant trader carrying on business from time to time and proceeding from piece to place, and certainly with no defined base of operations. The defendant carried on business from a definite base and at a time reasonably certain. Mr Carson said that a wages book was not kept because the defendant said the boy was “ more or less a hanger-on on the cart.” The magistrate (Mr H. W. Bundle) : Ho was a “ hanger-on ” for some time, apparently. His Worship intimated that he would take time to consider the matter.