Everyone enjoys an extra day off, especially when it is a public holiday and therefore does not count against one’s annual paid leave entitlement, if any.

However, in our view a proper balance needs to be struck between the social benefits of public holidays and their economic cost and, in this particular case, the economic implications may not even have been thought of in the rush on the part of the privileged few to revel in newly-acquired prestige and position.

At this particular time, when the country and its people are struggling with the worst economic crisis in recent memory, we question the wisdom of introducing a second, one time only, public holiday this month in order to mark the coming into effect of the new Constitution.

Yes, this is an important, even a landmark event in the history and development of the Cayman Islands, but it seems to us that planned events and festivities could equally well be celebrated three days later on Remembrance Day, also a public holiday, on 9 November, instead of adding yet another day off on Friday, 6 November.

When the UK was considering the creation of a new public holiday in November, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said the proposal could cost the British economy up to £6 billion (CI$8 billion).

With the population of the Cayman Islands approximately one-thousandth of Britain’s population, using that measure, the equivalent cost to our economy would be CI$8 million.

This, of course, does not take into account the differences in our respective economies, nor the fact that the CBI may have made its calculation based upon the future cost of an annual holiday as compared to a one-time-only event.

Nevertheless, the point remains a valid one, namely, that there is a significant cost associated with any country’s working population taking time off from productive labour, even though that cost may be difficult to calculate.

And those employees that don’t take time off but may be required to work on public holidays, are then usually entitled to extra pay for so doing, which is then a directly increased cost of the holiday for the employer.

The question that we would like to have answered but, realistically, is never likely to happen, is whether or not anyone actually gave any thought or consideration at all to the reality that the mere fact of having an additional public holiday does have a cost associated with it.

The country is already being saddled with the expense of celebrating the adoption of the new Constitution in the style to which government ministers and others would like to become accustomed, but surely all this could have been planned for the existing public holiday on 9 November.

We don’t want to be thought of as the Grinch that tried to steal the Constitutional holiday but, so far as we can see, this is just another example of the current government’s propensity to try to maintain the trappings of power and government untouched, and perhaps even increased, at any cost.

Furthermore, the need for the additional holiday at this particular time is by no means apparent to a majority of our local readers, if the results of the latest Cayman Net News online poll are anything to go by.

We have pointed out over and over again that this government should not expect the working class and local small businesses to fund “big” government through increased taxes, when the government itself is making no real effort to cut its coat according to its cloth.

For once, we are not alone in our sentiments in this respect. As recently underscored by Carlos de Serpa Pimentel, the chairman of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners in the Cayman Islands (STEP), the government appears to be doing little to tackle the other side of the revenue/expenditure equation, namely, reduce operating expenses.

It should be clear to everyone that the government is indeed facing the “difficult decision” alluded to by Michael Foot in his recently released report on Britain’s offshore financial centres and, if there were an easy way out, the decisions would not be difficult in the first place.

Regrettably, the government has so far tried to take the route it thinks offers the least political fallout by taxing lower paid, largely foreign workers and small businesses that do not enjoy the same ease of lobbying access as the high net worth wealthier, professionals, merchants and entrepreneurs – who no doubt will be in attendance at the reportedly $1000 per plate ball planned at the Ritz for the coronation of the country’s first premier.