66 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. 



Sir John wrote : 



Dear Sir — In reply to your enquiry I may say that 

 when I was first invited to stand for Pariiament I 

 naturally asked myself what I should do when I got 

 there. It seemed to me that I might hope to be of use 

 in Scientific and Commercial questions, and there were 

 three subjects on which I was especially anxious for 

 some alteration of the law. These were : 



1. To secure a certain number of National Holidays. 



2. To shorten the excessive hours of labour of Shop- 

 keepers and Shop-Assistants. 



3. To preserve our ancient National Monuments. 

 The second of these objects has involved a long and 



uphill struggle, and a whole generation of our country- 

 men and countrywomen have suffered, and too often 

 succumbed to, the terribly long hours of labour in 

 Shops. At last, however, we have reason to hope that 

 the Early Closing Bill will become law. 



The third object was not accomplished without much 

 difficulty, but some years ago the Ancient Monuments 

 Act was passed ; it is hoped that in consequence of the 

 powers given in it but little wanton injury has since 

 been done. 



The Bank Holiday Bill, on the contrary, met with 

 no opposition, and, as you remind me, has now been in 

 operation for a quarter of a century. Its easy passage 

 was, I believe, partly the result of an accident. On 

 the old holidays. Bills of Exchange are payable the day 

 previously, i.e. Sunday Bills on Saturday. We felt 

 that it would be difficult to extend this to the new 

 holidays, and after some consideration we determined 

 to propose that they should be payable the day after 

 instead of before. Hence, we had to devise some 

 special name for the new holidays, and we called them 

 Bank Holidays. If we had called our Bill the General 

 Holiday Bill, or the National Holiday Bill, I doubt 

 not it would have been opposed ; but the modest name 

 of " Bank Holiday " attracted no attention and roused 

 no opposition. 



It is often said that the Bill was intended for Banks 

 only. This is quite a mistake. It expressly enacts 

 that no person shall be compellable to do anything on 

 a Bank Holiday which he could not be compelled to 



