Holidays With Pay At any period when domestic issues were
less over- shadowed by foreign policy the establishment of holidays with pay would be recognised as an innovation of first-rate importance in the field of industry. It is over two years since the Committee on Holidays with Pay was set up under Lord Amulree. Since then the number of wage-earners re- ceiving holidays with pay has increased from over a million and a half to about four million. Even so this represents only about half the employees in the country. The Report of the Committee contained, however, as one of its principal conclusions, a unanimous recommendation that the grant of such holidays under voluntary agreements between organ- isations representing employers and workers should be extended as far and as soon as possible. To help to accelerate this process the Ministry of Labour has published this week an admirable booklet, which sets out the various collective agreements which have already been arrived at. They are of considerable variety in scope and range. Some admit the fact revealed by The Spectator's inquiries in South Wales when the scheme began there, that the usual allow- ance is not sufficient for a real holiday, and works savings- clubs, with contributions by employers and workers, have been set up. The booklet is a valuable pointer to future legislation if it should ever be decided, as it well may be, to make holidays with pay compulsory.
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