CULTURE AND LEISURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 173, 24 July 1934, Page 12

CULTURE AND LEISURE.

WORKERS' EMANCIPATION. "Leisure was once only possible to a ■elect few in society," said Mr. H. D. Dickinson, lecturer in economics at the Auckland University . College, in the j'ourse of a lecture last evening to _ the Auckland Institute. "Leisure was enjoyed jy them," he said, "at the eoet of reducng large numbers of their fellow men to i condition of living instruments, slaves, lerfs, underpaid wage-earners and petty jroducers. "Since the first application of mechanical lower to economic production, rationally lirected labour has been nearer producing ;he means of a full and abundant life for ill. In addition, the labourer has ample ipare time to enjoy the fruits of his efforts. The benefits once procured by he few living instruments can now be >rocured for the many by mechanical laves. There is a vigorous cultural novement in the working class. This is small at present and handicapped by the commercial vendors of" amusement, but an earnest of great things to be " Mr. Dickinson dealt with the essential factors in the development of culture. He defined culture as "what people do when the urgency of material needs is relaxed and they can do what they would like to rather than what they must do." Large nations had the advantage over small ones in the development of culture, and it was difficult nowadays for a nation of fewer than 5,000,000 people to develop a national culture.