I.—9a.

62

[j. BEVEEIDGE.

employment and those in other seven-day industries have not got the protection that our servants have. We do not think there should be any exceptions made. You are exempting in this Bill all those private hotels and licensed hotels that employ three hands or less. That is another anomaly. You might have a hotelkeeper who employed a staff of six, and he would bu bound to comply with this regulation; yet not tar away there might be some one who was in direct competition but employed only three and several members of his family—he would be exempt. That is manifestly unfair. We think there should be no exception to this at all. We say we are quite agreeable to come into line on this six-day-week proposal, provided every other worker in a seven-day industry is brought under the scope of the Act. 8. Hon. Mr. Masse.//.] What other industries are you thinking of?— You have your Police service, your ferry services, tramway service, and your dairying industry. Those in these industries are all seven-day workers, and if this Bill is in the interests of the workers they are just as much entitled to protection as hotel servants. You are selecting the only seven-day industry that is already bound by law to keep open on every day in the year. You are putting another hardship upon us. Therefore we ask for exemption from this, or to be brought into line when you can bring everybody else into line. 9. Mr. Yeitch.] You want to be the last brought into line/ —No; we will all start together if you like; but we do not want to be the first. We havv documentary evidence here to prove what this, if it comes into force, is going to cost the different hotelkeepers, and 1 can assure you that the profits in some hotels now are not what-they are generally supposed to be. 1 speak of my own particular case. 1 have here figures which show that it will cost me £717 a year if this Bill becomes law. I shall have to employ a further staff of six. You will be told by the other side that it is not necessary—that the hotels can b>' worked without augmenting the staffs to any appreciable extent. That is all very well. The staiiV may say that at the present time. If you went round and asked them whether they thought it would be necessary to augment the staff probably they would say No. But what would the position be if this Bill became law? Take the second cook. He has to start in the morning and do his work and the chief cook's as well. In the afternoon that man would say. " I have worked my full hours already, and I will not work any more." You will have to get another man. I can assure you that these extra staffs would be required. I have a list here that I made out. I got the whole of the waiters into my office and went through the list with them, and they all agreed that these extra hands would be absolutely required. That extra staff represents a cost of £717 that 1 would have to pay per year, and I can assure you the profit that would be left to me from the Grand Hotel after I had paid that extra money would only represent bank interest on the capital I have invested in my business. That is 12s. 6d. per day for the Grand Hotel. In the Pier Hotel, where the tariff is 7s. a day. it is computed that it would require an extra expenditure of £364 per annum. In the case of the City Buffet Hotel, when- the tariff is (is. per day, the extra cost would be £437. Unfortunately there was not time to get any Dunedin delegates here, but I have a list of several instances in connection with the hotels there. For the Provincial Hotel, where the tariff is 6s. per day, they reckon the extra cost would be £460 per year; Wain's Hotel, extra cost £500 a year; McKenzie's Hotel, £577 per annum; Grand Hotel, £507; Crown Hotel, £374. I have a list in each of those cases giving the details of the extra cost, and all have been duly signed. They show what extra cost the hotelkeepers will be put to if this Bill becomes law, and they are compelled to carry on under the leases that have been entered into and liabilities that have been contracted. If this Bill is put into force we are faced with this heavy extra expenditure, which will mean the upsetting of our business altogether. 10. Hun. Mr. Massey.] What is the term of your lease? —I am just out. I may tell you that I will not renew my lease, if I have any option in the matter, if this Bill becomes law, at the same rent 1 am now paying. The position is that there are a great many people who are bound up in hotels just now who have only entered into the leases recently, and have four or five years to run upon terms contingent on the time they entered into the arrangement; and if this Bill is passed it is going to create a great upsetting of the business, and we consider we are quite justified in asking to be'exeinpted from the hardships that it would entail upon us. We reckon there are ways out of the difficulty, and think that the Arbitration Court should be the tribunal to deal with the matter. 11. -Would you be satisfied to have this matter referred to the Arbitration Court? —Perfectly satisfied. If the Arbitration Court says it will grant the concession then we will have to get relief in other directions. They have been altering the conditions without granting us relief, but if they granted us a six-day week based on the wages paid on a seven-day week we would be perfectly agreeable to have the whole matter referred to the Arbitration Court. I might say that the hotel workers of this Dominion have, since the Arbitration Court award, had more benefits conferred on them than any other body of industrial workers. In 1910 there was an award made providing for certain wages and certain hours, but the union was not satisfied. They appealed to the then Minister of Labour, the Hon. Mr. Millar, and in the dying hours of the session an amendment to the Shops and Offices Act was put through giving a weekly half-holiday to all hotel employees who were classed as shop-assistants. Previous to that the hours were sixty-five for all hands, but that amendment reduced them to sixty-two in the case of males and fifty-eight in the case of females. That was to come into force on the expiry of the existing award. That was a direct interference, and if we had had to do that through the Arbitration Court we should have had relief in certain other ways. You will also be told, gentlemen, that the Bill providing for six days a week is working amicably and smoothly in Sydney. That may be so, but the conditions are not nearly the same as here. In the first place, New South Wales for the past ten years has been enjoying a period of unprecedented prosperity. We emphatically protest against being brought under the provisions of this Bill in our capacity as hotelkeepers. We are quite