SERVANTS' HALF-HOLIDAY.

Mt Benger Mail, Volume 17, Issue 850, 29 August 1896, Page 3

SERVANTS' HALF-HOLIDAY.

WELLINGTON, Auuust 20. Mr J. W. Kelly'B famous Domestic Servants' Half-holiday Bill came before the Legislative Council yesterday, Mr Bolt taking charge of it. Without styling himself the special chimpion of the servants, Mr Bolt said it seemed to him peculiar that, while they had legislated to give every class a half-holiday, they had not granted the same privilege to that class least able to help itself. He could not see why any exception Bhould be made in respect to servants.—As was to be expected from the treatment of this Bill in the Lower House, it now had a short shrift, Sir G. Whitmore proposing that it be read a second time that day six months. Messrs Peacock, Shriniski. and Jones all opposed it, the latter characterising it as a ridiculous proposal and one impossible to carry out. —Mr Montgomery, on the other hand, supported it, and pointed out that it was only reasonable that servants should have fourteen days' holiday during the year. It was not against either the wishes of good servants or good mistresses that the Bill should become law.—Mr Bowen said it was a bad Bill in principle and a foolish one. The punishment, in place of falling on proper shoulders, would fall on the unfortunate servant girls. The radical fault of the Bill was that it struck at the root of all proper feeling between employer and employed. He knew in this colony many instances where servants had remained friends of a family long after they had left its service, and he also knew of respectable servants were opposed to tjiis Bill. The manmt 18 wh »vh tjje Bill was to be parried out

was more mischievous than its principle, and it would have to be enforced by policemen. Good servants were limited in number, and they had the control of the matter in their own hands. If they were good servants they could almost command their own terms. This Bill,," for instance," would result in putting servants, good and bad, on the same footing—a sort of levelling downwards.— Mr M'Lean was also against the Bill, as it was practically turning servant girls out on the streets. Mr Jenkinson pointed out that the sole reason for the Bill was that servant girls had no Sunday to themselves ; and Mr Kerr, in the interest of the servant girls, endorsed Mrßowen's remarks.—Mr Bolt, replying, said that this method of killing a Bill by moving the second reading that day six months was getting monstrous. There was no provision in the Bill for turning girls out on the streets. He denied Mr Shrimski's assertion that the other House had passed the Bill in the hope that the Council would throw it out. It was true that good employers gave holidays to their girls, but this Bill was to meet a class of bad employers. All such legislation was intended to meet cases of that sort.—On a division Sir G. Whitmore's amendment was carried by 21 to 8. The eight were Messrs Barnicoat, Rigg, Jenkinson, Reeves, Bolt, Peacock, Montgomery, and the Minister of Education.