W. DEVINE.]

37

I.—9a.

25. But you said they did not work more than eight hours in any one day—that is, for the dining-room staff. Now, what is the maximum number of hours for the other members of your staff? —About seventy hours in the kitchen. 26. When do you begin to pay them for overtime—after the maximum number of hours per day* or is it after they have put in seventy hours? —If they work over seventy hours we pay them for the extra hours they work. 27. As overtime?— Yes. 28. Then you do not comply throughout with the Conditions of the Wellington award?—As near as possible. 29. You are not bound by that award in the country?— No. The practice is to pay them overtime after sixty-five hours have been worked. I misunderstand the question. 30. I asked you when you began to pay them overtime, and you said, after they had worked seventy hours? —I meant after sixty-five. If they work up to seventy hours I pay them for five hours over. 31. Mr. Luke.] Have you an electric engineer employed in your hotel? —No. Marshall John Donnelly examined. (No. 17.) 1. The Chairman.] What are you? —.Licensee of the New-Zealander Hotel, Manners Street, Wellington. 2. Are you a member of the Licensed Victuallers' Association?— Yes. As a matter of fact I am treasurer of both the Wellington and the New Zealand Licensed Victuallers' Associations. 3. Make your own statement, please?—l do not wish to go over the ground already covered by Mr. Pryor and Mr. Beveridge. 1 will confine myself to one or two clauses in the Bill and state how they will affect my own particular hotel. With regard to the question of night-porters getting the whole twenty-four hours off, 1 consider it impracticable. It would be impossible for mc to give my night-porter tyventy-four hours off, because 1 keep only one, and it is, in my opinion, the most responsible position in the house. With me the night-porter turns to at 10 o'clock at night. He has the keys of the house and the bars. It is his duty to wash out and get everything clean and ready to open again in the morning. He has to clean the boots and watch the house to guard against fire, and admit boarders who arrive after hours, to call people for the early trains, and all that sort of thing. Well, if he had twenty-four hours off from the time of starting work at night it would really mean thirty-eight hours, as he would not work from 8 a.m. one day until 10 p.m. the next. According to the Bill he would not be allowed to start work again for twentyfour hours from the usual time of commencing, or at 10 o'clock at night. Now, it is almost an impossibility to get a good reliable man to relieve a night-porter. In fact, a licensee could not trust a strange man to relieve him. There is no one in the house to take his place, and it would really mean taking a man on specially for that one night, and any one knows that you could not place the keys of the house in the hands of a man you do not know. He might turn out to be a burglar, and even the lives of the occupants of the hotel would be in his hands. My night-porter does not want any change—in fact, he has a very good time. But Ido not .see how it is possible to let a night-porter off where there is only one kept, and my business would not run two. With regard to the housemaids and reducing their hours to fifty-six, that, in my opinion, is impracticable also. Although the housemaids do not work half the time they are on duty, still they have to be there in case they are required. We have guests leaving by the trains and steamers at night, and almost immediately after they leave others arriving. We have to wait until departing guests leave, and then have the rooms put in order for those coming after them, and it is therefore almost impossible to have the number of hours reduced in the matter of the housemaids. We consider them to be domestics. In my case most of my staff have been with me for two years and upwards, and they have all expressed to me their desire that there should be no change made. I give them every chance to do their own personal work in my time, provided they are present when their services are required. The same thing applies to the kitchen hands. The barber comes in in the morning and shaves my cook, and I suppose there is not an afternoon passes without the whole of the staff being off for a couple of hours. They come back again in time to get the dinner ready. I have a first-class staff and give them every concession, and I am sure that if I required them to do a little extra work they would do it willingly. I have had occasions when a barmaid has left, and the housemaid has come down and worked in the bar for me. lam sure that if they were to be tied down in the matter of hours it would be a great hardship to all of us. 1 understand from Mr. Millar that the term holiday is to come out of the Bill. Personally I yvould like the halfholiday to remain as it is at present, because we went to considerable trouble in regulating the staff to the number of hours we are now working, and if we had to go over it all again yve might probably not be able to fix matters up so well. Of course, if the number of hours is reduced I think it would be only a fair thing that the rate of wages should also be reduced. We are not making the pot of money we are credited yvith doing—in fact, some of us are just struggling along at the present time. We have had a very bad run lately. If such a thing as the term holiday were put in the Bill, personally I would rather pay the yvages in lieu of it, because it would upset my staff, and lam sure the employees would prefer to have the extra pay. I might state that I am representing the views of the smaller hotelkeepers- -that is, the second-grade first-class hotels. They object strongly to the.proposals contained in the Bill, but it was not thought necessary to bring half a dozen witnesses from each class of hotel, and I represent my class. I do not know that I have anything more to say. The matters I have spoken of practically affect my business. 4. Hon. Mr. Millar.] You said it was impracticable to reduce the number of hours : do you know that in every State of Australia not more than fifty-two hours a week are worked. In New South Wales it is compulsory, where it is a seven-day house, to give one day off in the week to every