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Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4902, 14 December 1894, Page 2

Tue Shop and Shop Assistants Act of 1894 comes into operation on the Ist of January next, It is one ot the plagues wherewith the Hon W. H. P. Reeves has plagued us, but it is now the law, and we must respect it as such, Not only shops hut offices have to be closed. Next month the, Masterfcon Borough Council have to decide what day shall be chosen for the statutory half holiday. In Wellington, shop assistants demand Saturday, but in this town there has as yet been no public' expression of opinion on this point, There should be meetings of employers and employes at an early date, so that the Borough Council may be able to ascertain the views of all parties interested. The Act is a melange of shops and offices mixed up with exemptions and provisos in such a way that it would gladden the heart of a Philadelphia lawyer. Por example all oices are to close at 1 p.m. on Saturday, but no penalty is attached to the clause which pro-! claims this edict, If there be no penalty we fear there will bo a somVwhat slack observance of the mandate. We think the new Act will bo popular amongst lawyers, for itopens up a wide field for litigation owing to the slovenly manner'in which it has been put together/ Still like most other legislation of the present era it is open to be corrected andrevised when the Assembly again meets, The Bank Clerk who fancies that there is a good holiday time coining under this Act, will, we fear, be disappointed. In the first place it is only operative during forty-four out of the fifty-two weeks in the year, and in the second it only works on twenty-two days out of each twentyeight, and the days and weeks are so loosely specified that a clerk may search for a legal holidayfromJanuary to December without being able co find it in the mazes and intricacies of the measure. Then again if he has not balanced up his books he has to stop on at his office. The tender mercies of the average employer are in the matter of holidays worth much more than nil the concessions in the Act.