The Toils of Leisure

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28169, 7 January 1957, Page 6

The Toils of Leisure

The development in America of a lawn grass which, it is claimed, needs cutting only once a month, is a reminder that you cannot please everyone. The Walrus has already anticipated the protests of the lawn-mower manufacturers. What of the army of small boys who make honest capital from lawnmowing, the makers and sellers of fertilisers, lawn stimulants, and irrigation equipment? Will it be an unmjxed blessing even to those who find lawn-mowing a weekly martyrdom? From abundance, it has been said, come surfeit and disgust. “ Work employment, useful “ occupation—is one of the “ great sources of happiness ”, wrote that persistent counsellor, Samuel Smiles. But Dr. Smiles mixes ill with labour on a scorching summer holiday. Beside Smiles let us set another Victorian philosopher, Thomas Hughes. “ The gospel of work ”, said Hughes, “ is a true gospel, “ though not the only one, or the “ highest . . . ”. Having contrived, through mechanical aids of his own devising, to increase

enormously his leisure hours, man logically turns to nature for further release from toil. The pity is that nature was not more co-operative before the invention of the motor-mower or when the turf was mown with scythes, and when the householder’s business ties extended far beyond a 40-hour week. That splendid draper’s assistant, Mr Tittlebat Titmouse —the hero of “Ten Thousand a “ Year ” —who worked in a London shop from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. six days a week, has fortunately vanished with all his laborious fellows. The problem now is the right use of the leisure we have gained, and the rightness of its increase. The reported ability of this new lawn plant to oust all other vegetation from the lawn patch will certainly put it under suspicion. Can it be guaranteed to know its place and to keep in it? The cautious farmer will want to be assured that we do not again import, in the interest of public recreation, a foreigner like the rabbit to overrun the countryside and to starve out its legitimate occupants.