53

L—9a.

A. 1. BKOWN.J

the extra cost, so it is absolutely impossible for us to pay increased wages. The whole holiday once ii week would be out of all reason, considering the easy times the staff have at present. My staff have early tea at 6.30, breakfast at 9, morning tea at 11, lunch at 2, afternoon tea at 4, dinner at 7, and supper from 9 to 10 o'clock. They have comfortable sleeping-accommodation, l'ood—the same as my guests — ad libitum, and they take their own time at work so long as it is done satisfactorily. I have strong objection to compulsory inspection of our houses and books, unless the union can show any good reason for it. 1 do not consider it a sufficient reason that they might find a black sheep among the boardinghouse-keepers. Unless there is general tyranny carried on towards the staff 1 have no sympathy with the demands of the union. If there were 1 would be the first to be up in arms against it in the interests of fair play. I have been president of the Boardiughouse-keepers' Association for four years. 1 want to endeavour to show good reasons why the private-hotel keepers and boardiughouse-keepers should not be brought within the scope of this Bill, but that they should be deleted from the wording of the Bill. During the last fourteen years I have made a close study of matters affecting the members of our association and their numerous employees, and 1 have always endeavoured to bring about, in a broad-minded way, a friendly feeling between the boardiughouse-keepers and their staffs, so as to secure for the latter the maximum of pay, leisure, and recreation compatible with the successful management of our several businesses. On account of high prices for foodstuffs, coal, &c, boardinghouses generally, especially the small houses, find it very difficult to make fair remuneration. In some cases they barely make a living-wage after paying expenses. At the present time numbers of them are working at a loss, but are living in hopes of better times soon. The proprietors in many cases work much harder and longer hours than their staff, have all the risk and responsibility, and in case of emergency are often without a sinking fund to draw from, while the staff as a rule are able to buy luxuries that their employers could not afford. The three hundred— more or less —boardinghouses in Auckland are so diverse in their conditions and surrounding circumstances that it would be impossible to make a set of conditions for them without being extremely harsh and unjust to the largest proportion of them, and probably numbers of them would have to close up. Our employees get more pay, more leisure time for recreation, rest, and laundry-work, additions to their wages in tips from guests, and better food, than they do in the larger number of private houses. In most cases they are perfectly satisfied, and as far as 1 know have little sympathy with the union demands, which are unreasonable and uncalled-for. The breakages in our establishments are enormous, and the staff are not asked to pay for them, but the expense constitutes a big weekly rent in itself. Private houses, especially in suburbs, find great difficulty in securing help, girls preferring boardinghouses, where the conditions are more cheerful and congenial, and if a house does not suit a girl she is not compelled to stay, as there are plenty of other places available. The residents in the suburbs are constantly selling or letting their houses to avoid hard work and worries of housekeeping, and are seeking homes in boardinghouses where they hope for rest and peace. A man's home—boardinghouse or otherwise—should be his castle and exempt from the inroads of Socialist and Labour agitators, who are not voicing the feelings of our staffs, but are persisting in their persecution and are wasting our time and money by constantly bringing us into the various Courts without any tangible reason except that we are employers of labour and have the pluck and enterprise to find capital, at great risk to ourselves, for investment in our business, thereby also providing congenial work for a large number of employees. There are no doubt black sheep in every community of employers, but in boardinghouses the exception proves the rule. Where employees carry out their duties conscientiously they receive courtesy and consideration from employers. If the demands of the union are acceded to proprietors will have to work with fewer hands than hitherto and longer hours, as in most cases they do not work up to regulation hours required by the union. Another tendency would be to undermine friendly relations and confidential feelings that exist between us at present. Some of the Auckland staffs are able to undress and get into bed for several hours in afternoons if they do not wish to go out. Our chief and strongest reason for seeking to be excluded from the Act is that we consider private hotels and boardinghouses are neither more nor less,than private homes, and differ largely from public hotels kept for the sale of liquor, and where they have billiard-tables, &c, from which they make large profits. Some mothers would not allow their daughters to be subjected to the dangers and temptations surrounding a licensed hotel, but would have no objection to their working in boardinghouses. A good many of the hotels do not take the trouble to fill their rooms with boarders, as they do not want to be bothered with them, being able to do well from the liquor profits only. We would respectfully suggest that it is just as reasonable to put private houses under the award as to put most of the private boardinghouses, a private boardinghouse being neither a shop nor an office in the true sense of the words. In March, 1909, Commissioner T. Harle Giles, Conciliation Commissioner, ruled that it would be unjust to put us on the same footing as a public licensed hotel, and in this opinion Mr. Justice Sim, President of the Arbitration Court, entirely concurs; hence in July, 1909, at the Arbitration Court in Christchurch, he refused to make an award, saying that private hotels were boardinghouses under another name, and they should not be brought under award conditions and restrictions. The Dunedin case in February, 1909, was a private agreement between the parties and the union, applying only to a few houses. Judge Sim refused to include other houses, as he considered they could not afford to pay the claims. The same thing, he said, applied in Christchurch, and even if they could afford to pay an increased wage he did not see any reason why they should do so. The Judge said that employees were provided with board and lodging and were paid a wage sufficient to furnish them with all the necessaries of life; there could be no question of a living-wage, and except in special circumstances, like Rotorua, the Court should not attempt to regulate the wages of such workers. The Legislature, by enacting section 71 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1908, had made it clear that the