THE SHOP AND SHOP ASSISTANTS ACT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 4941, 14 February 1895, Page 3

THE SHOP AND SHOP ASSISTANTS ACT.

The Pall Mall Gazette has a good ~ deal to say 011 the subject of the >| Shops aud Shop Assistants Act, t which.it remarks, affords a sullieiont ] sample of the state of affairs which a the new legislation of your Parliament will usher in. Whilst generally sympathising with laws which aim ; at bettering the condition of many s at even the expeuse of a few, the , Pull Mall Gazette recognises that ] tWe is a limit to the curtailment of ( individual liberty which it is safe ) J| for any State to try, and predicts s that there will be a speedy reaction < against thesystomofespionagewhicb ] is inseparable from the due enforce- j ment of such an excess of legislative , intervention in the affairs of ordinary , business and domestic life as in the - attempt by the New Zealand Par- , liament in the act under notice. ( Regarding the 18th clause, the paper j says that," except that the normal , closing hour will be made earlier ■ than customary, the clause will con- , ferno boon on the employe," and j may prove very detrimental to his ( comfort in the cases where employers 1 make the Government maximum of ; hours their actual minimum. "Many of the commercial youths of the country would prefer staying an hour or two later in the evening to getting up earlier in tho morning if their masters chose to have them at 6 a.m." And of the clause beginning "No shopkeeper shall fa) directly or indirectly, prohibit or prevent," &c., the Gazette says "It must be patent what an amount of irritation will be introduced into the hitherto moderately & good relations existing between cmW ployers and employes by such an attempt. . . Deceit anddissatis- » faction will be the certain outcome, and if a master thinks an employe nits too long he will have carefully to pick another cause of quarrel if lie ■wants to get rid of a lazy assistant," "A provision of tho Act which will cause great heartburning is that which sets up a difference between shops run by hired employes and those on family lines. , . , It is really difficult to see why the man who employs other people's children at a wage should be penalised 1. favor of peoplo who employ their own, with probably littlo remuneran tion beyond mere board and lodging In the excess of Christian desire to include the Chinamen among tho 'leisured classes,' tho zealous practiser of overture lias all the restrictive clauses of the Act applied to him, no leniency being shown to him even when he seeks to carry 011 tho vend--4 ing of goods on 'family lines.' When the legislation, and a lot on similar lines, comes into force with the viow of making everybody happy, it will create onesalientexception—namely, the factory inspector, to •whom is confided the impossible task of administering it. It is sad to think, that for the natural brightness of the New Zealand climate, an artificial atmosphere of espionage, informing, and irritation, should bo substituted, and all in tho cause of . human betterment,"—London corespondent, Dunedin fikr, ,