The Parliamentary Committee, appointed last year to consider the question of annual holidays with pay for the workers of Great Britain, has issued its report, and there appears to be more than a likelihood, if its recommendations are acted upon, that within a very short while employers will be obliged by law to grant to their employees a holiday of at least one working week for which wages will be paid as usual, To a large number of people in Shanghai already accustomed to such a practice, it will probably come as a surprise that the majority of workers in Britain have no such opportunity, and that many of those who manage to spend a week at the seaside, forfeit their wages for the period of inactivity and are only able to enjoy the annual vacation by careful saving during the rest of the year. The Lancashire mill operatives who go to the annual Wakes at Blackpool receive no wages while they are away from work, and yet the desire for the annual holiday is such that, despite that fact, they have always managed to find the means for the little relaxation they secure. With the growing influence of Labour and the determination to improve the lot of the working man, it was natural that wages and conditions should have received initial attention, and though employers have been approached in the past for this holiday concession it is orly comparatively recently that they gradually came ta see the reasonableness of the demand, and to some extent are now voluntarily meeting the wishes of their workers. The movement, however, is by no means general, and only yesterday this journal carried the report that the Federation of Master Cotton Spinners had, at any rate for the time being, refused the application of the representatives of their 350,000 workers for an annual week's holiday with pay. This was no refusal on the ground of principle, but because of the state of trade and it was suggested that the matter might be reconsidered in six months time, On the face of the granting of a week's holiday with pay would amount to an increase in the cost of labour by something rather under 2 per cent. That does not seem to be a very large increase, but, with competition as keen as it is, the added cost to overhead is something which cannot be lightly disregarded. The Parliamentary Committee itself is not prepared to recommend immediate legislation on the subject, and recommends a probationary period of one year in order that it may be ascertained exactly how far employers will go in the matter of their own volition, and also to permit of the study of cognate que: tions which must arise as the system is generally developed. Nevertheless it contemplates the passage of legislation during. the 1940-1 session of Parliament compulsorily providing for the workers' annual holiday with pay. It is, therefore, the considered ion of the Committee that this important social step should be taken, comparative!
and that its application should be complete throughout the nation. On this subject, the actual cost to the employer should not be allowed to weigh too heavily against the proposal. It is a demonstrable fact that the annual holiday is as much of value to the employer as it is to the employee. That is fully recognized in the Far East with reference to the long leave which is a common term in agreements of employment, the vacation not only doing good to the employee directly but to the employer indirectly by the maintenance of the former's health and energy. The committee's recommendation for immediate legislation, entitling domestic workers to two week's holiday with pay per annum, if adopted, should inflict no considerable hardship upon employers. Most middle-class families who can afford to engage a servant can also afford at least a fortnight's holiday at the seaside, and there is no partichlêr hardship in ensuring that domestic labour should receive a similar period, especially when the long hours a servant has to work are also taken into account.
There are, however, some cases in which the provision of this proposed holiday may prove inconvenient, This seems to be particularly the case with regard to farming and similar industries. Summer, with the success sion of crops to be harvested, is a time when all hands are required on the farm, and the employer in this instance may find himself at more than the disadvantage of having to pay holiday-making hands, but of having to engage other labour in their place. There are few if any persons willing to take holidays in the winter, when so far as agriculture is concerned it might be possible, and it is doubtful whether it will be possible to pass any legislation which will adequately cover such cases as those now suggested. There is some merit in the argument, however, that people engaged in out-of-doors employment are not so much' in need of a revigorating holiday as those workers mewed up for fifty-one weeks in the year in offices and factories: but, even then, all work and no play still makes Jack a dull boy, and, if for no other reason than the securing of a short surcease from work, the agricultural labourer should have his holiday, though the chances are that he will for the most part spend it leaning over the gate and looking at the work he would otherwise be doing. No doubt the residents of holiday resorts would welcome such legislation, Millions of people already take their annual vacations, but with the whole population of Great Britain getting its free week during the summer, business should boom for the seaside lodging-house keeper and the purveyors of cakes and ale stimulated to even greater activities. It is a far cry from those days when matters such as these received nothing in the nature of legislative attention, and the committee's report suffices to indicate how quickly the nation is coming to understand all the finer points of the relation of the Government to labour, and, if, as the Committee expects, legislation is eventually passed along the lines suggested, another step will have been taken for the mitigation of the lot of the toiler.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.