PICTURE SHOWS

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 27, 1 August 1917, Page 8

PICTURE SHOWS

AND NATIONAL EFFICIENCY.

The following reference to picture shows is made in the report of the National Efficiency Board:— .' ,

"The picture show industry, whether wholesale or retail, the board considered, should be regarded as non-essential. It recommended that no man .be exempted from military service because of his connection with the business, and that during the continuance of the war and for six months thereafter no permits should be issued for the opening of any new picture theatre, also that in the war period no building permits should be issued for the erection of or alteration of any building which was to be used as a picture show. The board also recommended that the Government should institute a censorship of pictures and theatrical posters in addition to the censorship of films. At a later date the board advised the Government that it had considered the waste and want of efficiency arising out of public amusements, and that although the board did not. then want to recommend (that picture shows should be closed in the afternoon, it expressed the opinion that no great good resulted to the community from their being open, a.nd that, when the time arrived for the systematic dilu-, tion of men's labour by female labour the board might have to recommend that public entertainments during the usual hours of labour should be prohibited except under special license."