§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
§ THE EARL OF ABERDEEN,in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it only applied to burghs in Scotland, and was rendered necessary by a change that had taken place respecting the observance of Fast Days, which was a distinctly Scottish institution. For some time past the observance of Fast Days in Scotland had greatly fallen into disuse, not from any want of fidelity towards religious ordinances, but rather because if the old system 278 were to be maintained it would have to be maintained more frequently than formerly. The Fast Days in Scotland had long filled the place of the observance of Good Friday and Bank Holidays in England, and the object of the Bill was to secure that the persons employed in factories should have a holiday on such days as there was a general holiday in the district where these factories were placed. Under previous Acts dealing with this subject it was provided that the two holidays should be the Fast Days. Now that the Fast Days had been largely discontinued, they were left the holidays, but no certain day was fixed. The Bill provided that the magistrates in burghs where no Fast Days were kept should appoint two holidays in the year at an interval of not less than two months. He had been asked why it was not applied to the whole of Scotland. There were two reasons why it had not been made to apply to the whole of Scotland. The first was that it was mainly in burghs that the institution of Fast Days had been discontinued, and therefore in counties opinion was not so ripe for the change; and, secondly, that the Bill would not have received such general approval as it did if it had applied to the whole country. He therefore thought it desirable that the Bill should be confined to the burghs. He hoped the House would give the Bill a second reading.
§ Moved,"That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Aberdeen.)
LORD BALFOURsaid, he thought the reasons given for confining the Bill to burghs were hardly sufficient. He knew that many country districts as well as burghs had discontinued the Fast Days, and in some of these, as in his own parish, there were more than one factory. Yet no provision was made for a holiday. It might thus happen that while in an adjoining burgh there would be a holiday, those employed in a neighbouring factory situated in the county would have none. He therefore thought it a most extraordinary proposal that a Bill of this kind should be made to apply only to burghs. In his opinion it would have been a less evil to have waited until next year, when there would probably be a County Bill for Scotland, and then the necessary 279 steps could have been taken to give the power of appointing these holidays to the Local Authority.
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly.