WEEKLY HALF-HOLIDAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8431, 1 May 1907, Page 6

WEEKLY HALF-HOLIDAY.

THE FACTORIES ACT. i After May 6th owners of factories in MasterLon will, in pursuance of a circular they have received from the Department of Labour, be compelled to observe their weekly half-holiday on Saturday. That the change in the half-holiday is not looked upon with favour in Masterton is evident from the petition signed by a number of factory owners, which appeared in our columns yesterday morning, and which will be forwarded to the Minister of Labour. The Hon. J. A. Millar told an interviewer recently that the Factories Act laid it down hard and fast that the Saturday half-holiday must be observed and he was determined k> see that the law was carried out. The definition of a factory within the meaning of the Act is as follows: —"Factory is (1) any building, office or place in which two or more persons are employed directly or indirectly on any handicraft or in preparing or manufacturing goods for trade or sale, but does' not include any building in course of erection nor any temporary workshop or .shed or workmen engaged in the erection of such building, but (whatever the number of persons employed therein) includes (2) every bakehouse (meaning thereby any building or place in which any article of food is baked for sale for human consumption); and also (3) every building or place in which steam or other mechanical power or appliance is used for the purpose of preparing or manufacturing goods for trade or sale or packing such goods for transit; and also (4) every laundry (meaning thereby every building or place where laundry work is performed for hire or reward), whether the persons employed therein receive payment or not; and also (5) every building or place in which any Asiatic is directly or indirectly employed in laundry work or any other handicraft or in preparing, or manufacturing goods for trade or sale or in packing them for transit." Mr G. E. Hood, Inspector of Factories tor Masterton, informed a Wairarapa Age reporter, yesterday, that his instructions were very plain : —-"To see that the Act is carried out."