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Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 203, 23 June 1893, Page 6

The case of the Inspector of Factories v. Van Bieda of Auckland, which was recently heard before Dr. Giles, R.M , will be remembered by our readers. The defendant was charged with a breach of the Factories Act in not paying his youthful girl employees for the Good Friday and Easter Monday holidays. The defence was that the girls had been dismissed on the Thursday and were therefore not in his employ on the holidays named, but the fact remained that many of them resumed wcrk on the Tuesday. Dr. Giles very justly, though perhaps not legally, recorded a conviction against the defendant. The case came before Justice Conolly this week on appeal and His Honor’s remarks in quashing the conviction will have the approval of all right-minded colonists, and will lead no doubt to an amendment of the Act. His Honor said :—‘He very much regretted that he must quash the conviction, because the appellant had no merits. It was a very scandalous evasion of the Act, but the framers of the Act appeared to have thought it sufficient to say

that he should pay the wages and if not paid the employee had a remedy—a very poor remedy no doubt—a person employed in a factory to go into Court to sue for a few shillings, and be dismissed by the em ployer, but he could only take the Act as he found it, and he could not read section 61 as applicable to a breach of section 58 ”