Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1895. THE SHOP ASSISTANTS ACT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5040, 1 June 1895, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1895. THE SHOP ASSISTANTS ACT.

The Shop and Shop Assistants Act has practically been in force for a period of five months and it lias done much to discredit the present Government, feincc the first day that itcamejnto operation it lias been resisted in various parts of the Colony, and it is only by a sories of departmental' prosecutions that it Ims become respected, and many of these prosecutions haye failed 011 technical grounds. It is found generally that the half-holiday is a soritms impediment to trade, by breaking its continuity and diminishing its returns. It is also tolerably evidont that it lias been an injury to Shop Assistants. Since its inception many employes liavo either lost .their employment or had their salaries reduced. Of course, tho half-holiday lias not been tho only ciuso in the whole or partial loss of ivages sustained by 'shop assistants, but it hns been a distinct factor in the matter. The Act lessens the returns of employers, and they, as soon as they discover this loss, at once endeavour to counteract it by docking their wages list. Shop assistants generally are in a worse position than tlioy were prior to the passing of tho ; Act, and the same maybe said of employers. Tho Act is not popular'with anybody excepting the Government, who haye forced it down the throats of Colonists. The more we see of it, the less we like it, for. every.'week we are reminded in Masterton of the injury it is doing to the town, On Thursdays country people do not come into town in the morning,' because shops close in the afternoon, The day, for trade purposes, is ft dead one, and even on tho following Friday morning it, is said, that instead, of settling steadily to work, thoro is a tendency for employes to discuss football and other kindred themes, Tho half-holiday occurring

in tlio middle of the week, is generally regarded ns a nuisance. Six dayß work in the week, are none too many for men who mean to get on in the world, and the division of the hebdomadal period into four spells of one day (Sunday), three and a-lmlf days, half-a-day and two days, iB an ingenious invention to cripple business mid dislocato trade. The Government have robbed the industrial army of New Zealand, of twenty-six working days in a year which had previously been sufficiently docked by statutory and customary holidays. Not content with this, j the Stato now proposes to cut off a hundred odd days per annum, from the working time of its three thousand co-operative and inopentivo labourers. No wonder the Colony has ceased to make headway!