J. C. CUSACK.]

95

T.-9

in writing of a majority of the occupiers of all the shops in the district of any local authority (nou boiug one of the districts mentioned in section 3 hereof) desiring that all the shops therein shall be closed in the evening of every working-day at an hour specified in the requisition, the Minister shall, by notice in the Gazette, direct that from and after a day therein mentioned all shops in the district shall be closed in accordance with the requisition ; and in such case, and until upon a like requisition the Gazette notice is cancelled or varied by the Minister, all shops in the district shall be closed accordingly." We take it from that that it is the whole of the trades throughout a town that can vote on the question ; and therefore we consider that if clause 21 is retained there should be a clause inserted dealing with the different trades and providing that each one alone can vote on the question. We would also like to point out the great disadvantages under which the hairdressers and tobacconists of New Zealand are placed. Our goods are sold by very nearly every class of shop throughout the colony —by chemists, fruiterers, Chinamen, restaurant-keepers, hotelkeepers, and others. You provide for tobacconists being closed at 6 o'clock and on half-holidays, and yet you allow hotelkeepers, fruiterers, Chinamen, and clubs, to sell cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco, which we consider a very great injustice to our particular trade. These people not only sell our goods, but they sell them when we are closed. You can go into a hotel and get cigars and cigarettes up to any time. You can go to a club on a Sunday or a holiday, at any time you like, and get what smokes you like. This, we think, is a very unfair thing to our trade. The larger men have to pay very heavy rents for their shops —I mean where they employ hands. We therefore consider that they should not be compelled to close while the smaller ones are allowed to keep open. Speaking on behalf of Wellington—there are fifty-six shops in the district, and we represent fifty of them. There are employed thirty-one men, seventeen apprentices, and two women. Then there are fifty-one employers. There are thirty-three shops altogether employing hands, and twentythree that do not. We w r ould point out that most of these shops have to cater for the men who knock off at 5 and 6 o'clock : working-men who, as a rule, have to go home, wash, clean, and change themselves before they can possibly be attended to by a hairdresser ; and then there are carters, carriers, and such like, who have to take their horses home and stable and feed them before they can possibly be attended to. The shop-assistants, who really get the benefit of this early closing, do not leave off till 6, and therefore they cannot be attended to if we have to shut at 6. We would also impress on the minds of you gentlemen that the hairdressing and tobacco businesses are absolutely one. One of them cannot very well be carried on without the other. We also claim that the men who work in the trade are not shop-assistants in any meaning of the term. We are tradesmen. A shop-assistant is a man who serves behind a counter, solely and purely. Our men are tradesmen, and have to go through a five-years apprenticeship before they can be called tradesmen. We therefore think that we should receive every possible consideration that can be given to us. Statement of William Gilbert, Hairdresser and Tobacconist, Manners Street, Wellington. (No. 96.) Witness : I would like to point out that there are special reasons why hairdressers and tobacconists should be allowed to fix their own closing-hours, under clause 21 ; but the clause seems to read that all other businesses would be allowed to vote on a question affecting hairdressers. If that is so, we do not want it at all. We want the hairdressers and tobacconists to be allowed to fix their own hour. We believe they would fix an hour —in fact, we feel confident of it; but we want to be able to do it ourselves. It is also very necessary to deal with hairdressing and selling tobacco as one business :it is specially necessary, because in nearly all cases one man runs the two ; the entrance to both is from the front, with no other entrance, and if he has to shut his tobacconist's shop his saloon must be closed also, whatever conditions are given to the hairdresser. There is another point that I would like to make. Several businesses that are likely to be exempt, such as a fruiterer's—chiefly Chinamen—carry on a big tobacco trade as well. In fact, I believe all the Chinese do. Well, if they are exempt, that exemption should be given for the sale of fruit and vegetables exclusively. In the case of all exempted trades I would urge that the word " exclusively "be put in, even with tobacconists. At present confectioners, hotelkeepers, and all sorts of people are selling our goods. A very large portion of our business is done after 6 o'clock, in both shop and saloon, and most of this could not possibly be done before 6. I can safely say that one-third of my business is done after 6 o'clock. Statement of Albert Richards, Hairdresser and Tobacconist. (No. 97.) Witness : I am very much in favour of early-closing myself, and should hail it with great favour if I could close my business at 6 o'clock ; but I know that it would mean ruination to me if my business were closed at that hour. I have been for twenty years in Cuba Street, and have always closed at 9. I believe our trade have got a petition before Parliament asking that 8 o'clock be the hour for closing with us ; but our deputation this morning, I believe, wish a clause put in under clause 21 of the Act, to provide that we may fix the hour. I might say that if such a clause is put in the hour will be fixed at 8, because it has already been fixed in a certain way by a majority of the trade ; and I think that 8 o'clock would be hailed with great favour in our business. I think it would be well to define " tobacconist " —what a tobacconist is—a seller of tobacconist's goods, &c, and hairdresser's requisites. 96. The Chairman.] How would you define it ?—A hairdresser and tobacconist sells cigarettes' cigars, tobaccos, pipes, and fancy goods, and hairdresser's requisites and all things for the head, &c, If it were defined I think the hotels would then be brought into line, and if they sold cigarettes they would be called tobacconists ; and the same with any shopkeepers who put a box of cigarettes in their window. 97. You would make the hotels close at 8 ?—lf they sold cigarettes. They would then stop selling cigars and cigarettes. I think that is all I have to say, without going over the ground covered by the other witnesses.