F. M. WHITEHEAD.^

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two or three days you have no need of her. If she could relieve the cooks that would not be so bad, but she cannot. You must put on a chef to relieve your chef. A second cook cannot carry on a large establishment—not for the dinner. In the large hotels where they have a chef who is walking about with his hands in his pockets it might be done, but in a restaurant it is altogether different. In nearly every restaurant the second conk could not take over the dinner. If you ask the chef to relieve the second cook he says No, and if you ask the second cook to relieve the third cook he says No. You must get a chef to relieve a chef, a second cook to relieve a second cook, and so on. That practically means that we shall have to get casual labour so as to work it, and where are we to get casual labour? Exhibition time is coming on, and we shall not be able to get even casual hands. 8. Mr. Anderson .] You say you would have to get a second cook to relieve a second cook, and a third cook to relieve a third cook: do you ask us to believe that? —You would not get one chef out of four or five who would take a second cook's job. 9. Mr. Okey.] You want to be able to keep your employees an extra half-hour. Do you think there would be any objection from your employees in the shop to that? —It is hard to say. Ido not anticipate any objection as far as I am personally concerned. 10. What number do you employ now?— Altogether, in the two restaurants and the shop, about twenty hands. 11. Do you anticipate any objection from them if the law allows them to work a further half-hour? —No. lam speaking of the shop. It is only for the females that we ask it. 12. Mr. Pryor.] What about the male employees : do you also desire the extra hour in addition to the schedule time? Does your business require it?— With a fruit-shop we have the trains going away. One train leaves at 12 at night. We have people coining down to the shop as late as 11.30. 13. You do a very considerable night business?— The best part of it is done at night. It is more night than day. 14. You do a very considerable business after theatre time? —After 10 o'clock really. From 10 till nearly 12 the place is practically full. 15. You are allowed to do that business now? —Yes. 16. And you only ask that that right should be continued to you?— That is so. 17. Would it represent a very considerable loss to you if the right were taken away and you were not allowed to employ your hands after 10.30?— On Saturday night after 10 o'clock, when the publichouses close, the men come in for supper. We have anything from one hundred to one hundred and thirty in the dining-room, and these people come out half a dozen at a time. Well, I must keep a male hand with me in the shop to see that I get the money. Under this Bill I should have to stay in the shop by myself, and I would be behind the counter, and people would walk out without paying. And there is the shop :it is very busy, and has to be attended to just as well. 18. Mr. Davey.] Is it attached to the restaurant?— Yes; they must go through the shop to pass into the restaurant. 19. Mr. Pryor.] You have a restaurant and a fruit and confectionery shop combined?— Yes. 20. It is absolutely essential, in order to enable you to carry on the business, that you should have the right to work your male employees for an hour later than is provided in the schedule? —Yes; and I would have to come down every night myself to close up, besides the rush nights. 21. Mr. Long.] You say that you employ twenty hands. How many of those are employed in the shop?— There would only be one regularly employed, but in busy times we have two or three. 22. What time are you asking that the female shop-assistants should be allowed to work to? —From half past 9 to 10 o'clock. 23. You told the Committee that the full day off is an impossibility, and that it would require you to employ an extra, chef. Who relieves the chef on his half-day now?— The second cook. We have our dinner from 12 to 2. We do not have our dinner at 6 o'clock like they do in large hotels. Therefore when we let our cook off for his half-day the big dinner is fiver, and the second cook can carry on then. 24. Is not the Cafe Cecil open to supply meals all day long?— Yes, from 7 in the morning till about a quarter to 12 at night. 25. The second cook is competent, then, on the chef's half-day, to take charge of the kitchen ? —Yes, after the big dinner is over. 26. Have you never had a second cook that was competent to do the work ? — I may have had one; but I have tried men that I have had, and they could not do it. 27. With respect to the half-holiday, you complain that there is something in the Bill that will compel you to give your hands a half-holiday on soinv particular day. What clause in the Bill is that? —I only know that one of the hotelkeepevs was fined in Auckland two or three weeks ago because he did not give the regular day. So I was told —I could not swear to it.' 28 Are you not aware that subsections (4) and (5) of clause 27 leave it open for the employer to give the servant a holiday on any day he or she thinks fit?—[No answer. | 29. Mr. Pryor.] You are quite satisfied to give a half-holiday so long as you can make it changeable in the week? —-Yes. 30. But clause 30, you are afraid, will compel you to give a certain fixed day for each employee? —Yes, and it is impossible, especially with the exhibition coming on. 31. Have you been compelled by the Labour Department to have it so fixed? —It is an understood thing in Auckland that we are to do it, but they have not been to me personally.

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