S. BEVERIDGE.'

11

I.—9a.

3. Do you own the Grand Hotel —have you got a lease ?—Yes, I lease it. 4. Do you not think, if you had to pay this extra £681 a year, that the landlord could make a little reduction in rent ?—I should like you to approach him ; you might be a little more successful than I have been. If you get the landlord to do it I shall be very pleased. 5. Men should be worked seven days a week in order that you may pay your rent—no doubt a very large rent —a very exorbitant rent, probably ?—lt is not only the rent, but there is the price of commodities going up every day, and we have no control over this. We have had to stand the brunt of all the increases. 6. This comes back to a brewer's question, does it not ? —No, I do not see that it does. 7. Theoretically, you will admit that every one should have one whole day's holiday in the seven, will you not I—lf1 —If we could close up the hotel for one day in the week, I should be quite agreeable-to doing so. lam just as much in need of a holiday as any one of my employees. 8. But theoretically you admit it, and you would be able to pay these wages if you had a slight reduction in rent ?—No, I do not see that a slight reduction in rent would cover it at all. 9. Supposing a thousand a year were knocked off ? —lf they knocked off a thousand there would be some other means found whereby we should have to pay it; there would be some other means of reimposing it, I dare say. 10. Mr. Glover.] Could not the owners of the hotels make a reduction in your rental equivalent to the amount of the extra expenditure ? —lt would be a very welcome relief. But we are not getting any nearer the question that is before us now. If this Bill goes through we shall be faced with that actual expense, whereas the other is problematical. 11. Mr. Okey.] I should like to know whether the work that your employees do on a Sunday is as much as they do on week-days ? —That is one of the unfortunate phases of hotel life. From day to day we can never tell what we are going to do. We must keep the staff up to its maximum efficiency on every day of the year. Whether it is supposed to be a slack season or a busy season, we never know from day to day how many we are going to have in the house. 12. But you do not keep the whole of your staff there on a Sunday ?—I always like my staff to have as much liberty as possible, and where it is consistent with the requirements of my house, on Sunday or any other day, I allow them to get away. If I have married men they all get off whenever it is convenient : that is an instruction to the dining-room manager. But what I can do voluntarily I do not want to be bound to do, because it will create a hardship ; and I am quite sure it is not the wish of all the employees that they should get those holidays. 13. Are the employees asking for this ? —They are asking for it through the secretary. 14. The employees : are they asking for it ?—I do not know. 15. You have forty-one in your house ; you must hear something ?—They are all quite content, if you go and ask them ; but if you go to them and say, " Would you like another £1 a week in wages ? " they, like everybody else, will say " Yes." I may say that the hotelkeepers are doing so well in Sydney that they do not combat this. They say they are quite content to let the employees chip in and have a good time too; they can afford to pay them. Here we are in a different position altogether. We have had a bad time, are having a bad time now, and seem likely to have a bad time in the future. 16. I take it you get your work forward for Sunday as much as possible : you do not work the staff on Sunday more than is unavoidable ?—No. Our employees do not work continuously like carpenters or bricklayers. They are there as the exigencies of the business demand it. You say that a hotel servant is working ten hours a day, but he is possibly not working ten hours : he is there on oa ll perhaps reading a book, or, in the case of the female servants, sewing. 17. You would not want to keep the forty-one there on Sunday working, would you ?—lf I only had twenty people in the house I might be able to let two of the staff away in the dining-room, and let the housemaid off. Ido now when possible. I recognise that we are very much in the hands of our employees, and it is just as well to work in with them. 18. Mr. Glover.] You state that it costs you lOd. per head per meal for the staff ? —Yes. 19. They have, I suppose, what is left over ?—Oh. no. We have a mess-room for the usefuls and for the housemaids, and they sit down and have special meals —all fresh-cooked meat. In the case of the waiters and the hall-porters, possibly they come into the pantry and they have what is going in the dining-room. In the Hotel Australia the waiters have porridge and steak-and-onions in the mornin"-. While I was staying there one of the best waiters was discharged because he was caught eating ham and eggs in the kitchen. 20. Some restaurants in New Zealand supply a meal of about three or four courses for Is., and I presume they pay : you said it cost you lOd. ?—lt is the quantity. We all know that in catering when once you get up to a maximum, above it is all profit. Those cheap restaurants —I do not suppose you would like to go and see what is made up in them. It might change your opinion ! Frank Oakes, Proprietor City Buffet, Wellington, made a statement and was examined. (No. 5.) Witness : Ido not know that I have much to add to what Mr. Beveridge has already stated. I employ eighteen hands —fourteen exclusive of the bar-staff —and if the Bill became law it would mean the addition, on a hasty calculation, of at least four to that staff. The cost of boarding them Out — 1 have not accommodation on the premises for them —would be £1 per week, and their maintenance would be an additional £3. Then there would be their wages —porter, £1 55.; waitress, £1 2s. 6d.; housemaid 17s. ; and in the kitchen it would be necessary to have a competent man to take the chef's place whom I put down at £2 ss. This makes a total of £9 9s. 6d. a week, or £488 per annum. There is another member of the staff that has to be considered, as far as I am concerned, and that is the night