Shop Workers' Hours The Shop Hours Act is being subjected
to searching and wholesome criticism in its passage through Com-. mittee. At one time the Government threatened to drop the Bill owing to a defeat on the question of post-. Ironing the operation of the 48-hour week in shops until the end of 1936. They have now announced that they will persist with the Bill, but that they will ask the House to revise, in the Report stage, the decision made by the. Committee that the clause should become operative at the end of 1934. Their justification for their insistence is the difficulty .of getting employers concerned to agree to the abandonment of a transitional period before the 48-hour week becomes statutory. The opposition of these interests has been put up by every Government since the War as the excuse for not introducing this urgent social legislation. Now that the National Government has at last faced up to them, it ought not to spoil its work by a display of weakness of this kind. The scandal of young shop workers' hours is admitted by all. There is no justification for tolerating it for two years longer simply for the convenience of employers.
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