Shop Hours.

The employment of assistants in shops has been regulated by insisting on one half-holiday in the week, a limit to the working hours of women and persons under eighteen to forty-eight hours a week. Proper sitting accommodation must be provided for females.

The inspectors of factories who administer this Act report that in the towns (especially in the provincial capitals of the South Island) employers have held public meetings to settle the half-holiday at which "they not only attempted to meet the Act in a generous manner but they showed an enthusiasm which was of a most unselfish character." To fix the day for the half-holiday caused no little friction between town and country, and between city and suburbs, but almost everywhere the expressed wish of the majority was accepted. In a few places difficulty was experienced owing to the owners of shops where no assistants are employed being kept open to catch the business of the closed establishments, forcing tie proprietors of the latter to reopen against their more generous instincts. In these eases the Act has been met by letting one assistant off duty on one day and another on some other day. A proposal to make Saturday a general and compulsory half-holiday throughout the Colony has been rejected by Parliament.