THE LAND OF HOLIDAYS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8075, 3 April 1906, Page 3

THE LAND OF HOLIDAYS.

NEW ZEALAND WORKERS HOLIDAYS. (London "Daily Mail). The odium which the Labour laws of the Australian Colonics have occasionally excited in Great Britain seems to have produced some surprise in New Zealand,, for the reason that New Zealand, on account of its own extensive concessions to labour interests, has regarded the Commonwealth as a land comparatively free from labour trammels.

Writing on this subject to the Daily Mail " from Onehunga, a New Zealand medical man. Dr B. H. Balewell, says: ''We are are now in the full swing of our holiday period, when our masters, the wage-earners, or, as they humsurously call themselves, the ' workers,' aro recruiting exhausted naturo after the arduous toil of forty four hours' work a week.

"Christmas aud New Years' Day both fell on a Monday, On the pre. vious Friday we recived a notice from the butcher,, the baker, the grocer, that would call the next day, Saturday, and then not again until the following Wednesday. This at midsummer, when meat will not keep twenty-four hours unless eooked, All the shops were shut on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. '• Milk is delivered at those periods once a day, aud as no means have yet been discovered of preventing a cow from requiring to be milked at least once a day, aud as the milk would spoil or could only be kept in ice, wkicli would be too expensive. Moreover. the majority of mothers in New Zealand are unable to Suckle their own children, and cows' milk is therefore indispensable. " Whenever the observances of a holiday would interfere with the pleasure, or comfort, or uouvenience of the great majority, «o squeamish regard for the rights or privileges of the minority is allowed to prevent its being dispensed with. For example, on these holidays the people employed on the tr iinways, thecoastal steamers, at the 1n0.7 stablos and cab-stamls, and in the public houses arc all worked to exhaustion. Similarly restaurants are expected to be open to provide much of the holiday-makers as may not find it convenient to take their food as to a picnic with a meal when required. "Of coure there is the weekly lialfhulidav, which is most rigorously observed. Shops must not be opened during these holidays. Even chemists must be closed except for a short period in the evening, and then open only for dispensing medicines. " Yet as the mub want their daily paper, more especially the evening ' |ajcr, they expect the papers every 1 day, and the boys, designated runners, have to lose tlieir holidays to deliver [hem. " Altogether, including Sundays, we [ lose ninety days every year. " As cattle and horses have to be fed, [ and cows to be milked, these holidays

are not rigidly observed in the agricultural and dairying districts. The 'workers' in those districts have to work every day. " Curiously enough, the banks have the longest holidays of any, aud have the power of taking an extra holiday at any time of the year by giving a few days' notice by advertisement. At Christmas all the banks closed at noon on Saturday until 1U a.m. oil Thursday. To-day (Wednesday, January 3) the banks are open for the lirst time .since uoou last Saturday,