Brighter Sunday The Aim

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31224, 23 November 1966, Page 21

Brighter Sunday The Aim

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, Nov. 22. A bill aimed at making the British Sunday less puritanical, allowing people to watch professional sport and go to the theatre, started on its journey through Parliament last night. How far it gets will depend on the individual member of Parliament, as the Government is officially neutral on this moral issue. Members are being allowed a free, non-party vote on the private bill sponsored by Lord Willis, playwright and author. Lord Willis is confident that his bill, or something like it, will become law because similar proposals made

by a Government-appointed independent commission two years ago were given a sympathetic hearing in both Houses of Parliament.

Last night the House of Lords gave the bill an unopposed second readingagreement in principle—though some peers, troubled about the increase in the number of Sunday workers caused by more entertainment, said they would try to make amendments at a later stage. The earliest of the Sunday observance laws banning fairs goes back to 1448. Sunday sports were stopped in 1627, work on Sunday in 1677 and Sunday entertainments in 1780. Most of the laws are based on the principle that church attendance should be encouraged by barring other public activities. Another principle is that on Sunday people should not do anything

viewed by the law as entertaining or commercially profitable. The laws are often ignored as being obsolete, but sometimes the Lord’s Day Observance Society takes an offender to Court—with the law on its side. Lord Willis said this minority society had frustrated change for many years. He said it had stopped table tennis matches and even beekeeping exhibitions on Sundays. Professional cricket was now being played on Sundays, but only by not charging for admission. Money was obtained by selling scorecards and making collections, he said.

Supporters of the bill said it was highly immoral to have to resort to such subterfuges to circumvent a law which was no longer considered relevant to modern times.