SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 944, 21 January 1911, Page 4

SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

VKRDICT AFTER THREE MONTHS’ TRIAL. The universal Saturday halfholiday was brought into force in October, and although the innovation was at the time regarded with considerable misgivings in certain quarters, still, after ten or eleven weeks’ trial, tu- great bulk of the business people seemed to be eminently satisfied with the change (says the Sydney Morning Herald). A large number of firms were communicated with on the subject, and in no instance was there a complaint of the diminution of the volume of business. Nor did any firm signify its anxiety to revert to the old order of things. The head of one house which used to keep open on Saturdays declared: “If it ever came about that we could make a choice of Wednesday or Saturday again, I doubt whether we would go back to the old style.” Several firms said that they had experienced very little difference as to the total weekly takings, though the daily receipts varied with the new order of things, just as there had been necessitated some reorganisation in the week’s business methods. But now the community was getting used to the change the business was flowing more and more regularly along the new channels. Before the change it was often urged that Friday night would never become quite like the oldtime Saturday night from a shopping point of view, but the heads ot quite a number of houses pointed out that the new order had resulted in Friday night being marked by a much greater rush of business than the old Saturday, The reason for this is that the shopping formerly done on Saturday afternoon and evening is now necessarily concentrated into Friday night. There is very little extra shopping done by the housewife on Friday afternoon now, because the breadwinners to a very large extent are only paid on that afternoon, and there is no opportunity to make a purchase until after tea. The consequent Friday night rush-is so great that many firms confess thc-it inability to cope with the business. The remedy, it is pointed out, is the adoption of Thursday as a universal pay-day, and most of the firms interviewed expressed the hope that employers generally would recognise the benefits to both the public and the tradesmen that would accrue from such a system.