SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1903. EMPIRE DAY. An Uninterested Public.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 152, 30 May 1903, Page 8

SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1903. EMPIRE DAY. An Uninterested Public.

NEW ZEALANDERS generally are easily persuaded into the belief that they are even more loyal than their cousins of the United Kingdom. Everyone remembers the profound grief occasioned here by the death of Queen Victoria, the terrific enthusiasm that prevailed when the British had a win in the Boer war, the intense interest aroused by the visit of the Royal Yorks, and the great clangour that arose when Peace was proclaimed. * * ♦ Last Monday was Empire Day. There are those who deprecate the deluge i.f holidays New Zealanders enjoy. Seeing that there are so many, however, it hurts one to think that a point was rot strained to add one more general holiday on that day. Nobody seemed to know what to do, and no one seemed to be in the least guided by their personal feelings in the matter. Many tradesmen closed their houses, believing that rivals intended to do likewise- - — and the rivals gained thereby. Tradespeople must observe a half-holiday every week in New Zealand. This is excellent. » » » It is not nice to read, however, that because those thirty-e.ght Blenheim tradespeople decided to close on St. George's Day, instead of on the usual day, they have been summoned You see, the keeping open of those thirty-eight shops on the usual half-holiday interfered with the trade of the people who had to close. Also, it was illegal, and deprived shop assistants of their rights. The Wellington people who kept their premises closed on Empire Day lost money by their loyalty, and they wouldn't have been loyal if they had known the other people intended keeping open. No one was summoned for robbing anybody of trade on this occasion.

Empire Day leminds us that on the 24th May was born the greatest Soveieign the world has known. Is it not a day worthy to be specially set apart and observed as a holiday ? Surely, we have a multitude of holidays almost any of which could be used as a working day in preference to this almost sacred one. By the way, Labour Day is a statutory holiday. It is regarded a« a most important occasion — evidently much more important than Empire Day. * ♦ # The half -heai ted lesponse to the invitation to observe Empire Day as x close holiday is peihaps an evidence that the average New Zealander is becoming more frugal. Might not one be as frugal on Labour Day? Suppose the claims of the late' Queen's birthday as a holiday were pitted against the claims of Labour Day, which should, in ? loyalist's opinion, be deemed to be the fitter occasion for cessation from toil ? If the people of this country want to uphold the reputation it believes it possesses as the most loyal spot in the Empire, it hag got to make Empire Day an honoured one, even though it should have to dispense with the statutory rest on Labour Day.