RECREATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 143, 18 June 1936, Page 8

RECREATION.

DUTY OF STATE

HOW TO USE LEISURE

MINISTERIAL PROBLEM. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. A statement that, while he wished to prescribe 110 compulsory games, lie wanted to surround all with the means of recreation when they had the will to employ them was made last evening i»v tlie Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W. E. Pariy. The Minister was discussing the best means of enjoying the increased leisure that was to come to workers under the Government's new industrial legislation.

"With machines doing the work they were invented to do, there i:i time for the people to tiike proper bodily recreation," saiil Mr. Parry. "If machine regimentation is corrected by individual play, normal conditions will be ours, in spite of the increased mechanical tempo of our life. Because of this return to normal conditions, our industry will gain rather than lose 111 spontaneity, initiative and craftsmanship. The Best Recreation. "Thanks to science and the machine, the day of leisure has arrived. The problem of providing for the enjoyment by the people of some of that leisure comes under my purview as Minister of Internal Affairs," continued Mr. Parry. The best forms of leisure and recreation were those that encouraged the greatest measure of personal initiative and creative ability.

Mr. Parry, in advocating outdoor and natural recreation, said he held strongly to the opinion that it would be better, too, for the country people if there could be a revival of interest in the breeding, training and owning of horses by farmer and son, as in the past. It would be better, too, for the country people to have their own district picnic race meetings than to have —as was happening to-day—the sons of farmers leaving their homes to concentrate 'in the cities, because of the lack of sport and recreation in their own neighbourhood.

"To assist ]>eople to recreate their mental and physical fibres, to recondition the human individual and free him from the perils and pains of a too great industrial regimentation, the State must provide," Mr. Parry said. "It is my duty to see that as our country comes of age the essentials of healthy, open-air recreation are not handed over to private monopoly."