The Catering Wages Commission is back on the subject of
staggered holidays—and no wonder, for the August rush is bad for hotels, which have to refuse thousands a-applicants whom they could accept, at considerable profit to themselves, at other periods of the year, and for the holiday-makers who have to suffer all the disabilities that arise from overcrowding both indoors and out. Something is hoped for from a change in school holidays after 195o, when the Ministry of Education's celebrated new examination, to take place in the spring rather than the summer, is in existence. But it is not clear that that is going to help very much. Family holidays are determined by school holidays, whether the latter fall in May, June, July or August. Different schools might no doubt arrange to fix their holidays at different dates, but there are various objections to that from the schools' point of view. The further suggestion, that th: dates of Whitsun and August Bank Holidays should be changed, brings up my old friend, the question of the date of Easter. There is, of course, no more reason why the date of Easter should vary than why the date of Christmas should. On the contrary, there is every reason both of common sense and of convenience why it should not. If Easter were fixed on the generally agreed date, the Sunday after the second Saturday in April, Whit Sunday would fall at the end of June, and the August Bank Holiday could be postponed till the end of August or the beginning of September, thus shorten-
ing the long holidayless stretch between August and Christmas. * * * *
Previous page
