The Daily News. FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1912. A FIVE DAYS' WEEK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 186, 12 January 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1912. A FIVE DAYS' WEEK.

Labor leader* have from time to time pictured a glorious future, when the "wage slaves" will only perspire for four hours a day, when the wages will be gorgeously adequate, and when "capital" will be demolished—or at least the wreteh who holds it. Mr. T. Mann was the gentleman who remarked with tremendous fervor that the world's manual work could be done if the workers only toiled for 240 minutes each in twentyfour hours. It is not often that the employer implores a worker to take a holiday, or suggests that he is injuring his esteemed health by working five and a-half days a week, but it is being seriously considered by Sydney manufacturers that they shall close down for the whole of each Saturday and tack on the hours to the five remaining working days. The manufacturers do not pretend to be philanthropic in seeking to introduce the five days' scheme. They merely say that it will pay them. This is probably the reason why labor; was immediately up in arms against the idea. The modern employer's point of view is probably that the healthier the human machine is, the better will it run. and in the matter of the whole day's holiday it is further suggested that people who work on Saturday morning are so entranced with the idea of getting away at noon that they do not perform the usual amount of work. The manufacturers say that their machinery is run at greater expense on Saturday morning than on other days, because it gets only a short run, that the output is short, and the result therefore unsatisfactory. Labor has been travelling Sydney urging the worker to say what he thinks of the proposed arrangement. ' Labor is angry, on the whole. It assumes . that the manufacturer is trying to beat for its eight-hour day, and is quite willing to accept a whole holiday on Saturday at full rates if five days of eight hours only are worked. The Eight Hours Committee regards it as a snake in the grass, mainly because it would make an Eight Hours Committee quite unnecessary, and probably rob some ex-horny-handed ones of nice little jobs. Some Sydney firms already have the five-days-a-vveck in steady going order, and say it is a very good idea, that the longer break makes the average worker much fresher for the fight on Monday, and able to put out quite as much work on the five days as lie would do in five «nd a-half. Naturally the "no work on Saturday" idea cannot possibly become universal, and even the most .advanced laboritc would revolt at the idea that everyone should knock off work for a whole day once a week. Half the world j always works in order that the other

half may enjoy its holiday, and to many people the idea of holidays—for the other fellow—is merely a horror necessitating greater application. At present everywhere the whole economic structure is being turned inside out. The beginning of this present century will possibly be remembered as the period' when most workers were seeking a change, presumably for the better. Curiously enough, the most pronounced aggression does not come from people who work the hardest, for constant employment of any kind is the best antidote for the "mulligrubs," and the idea that because a man gives one a job he must necessarily be a fiend of the deepest dye.