SYDNEY'S SUNDAY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 65, 19 March 1925, Page 4

SYDNEY'S SUNDAY

THE LURE OF THE SUN

(FROM Oliß OWN COBItESPOSDEKT.)

SYDNEY, 11th March,

A war goes on endlessly in this city of sunshine between the churchgoers and the non-churchgoers. The former are the aggressive and militant ones: the non-churchgoers are for the most part indifferent, and do nothing— except please themselves. The latest battle has to do with Sunday tennis.. The City Council owns Moore Park. Upon Moore Park it has placed tennis courts, a golf course, cricket pitches, etc. Although its golf_ course and its cricket pitches have been freely used on Sundays for years, the tennis courts have been closed; but recently the tennis players sought and were given peniiission to use the courts on Sundays, provided no official competitions were held. This City Council decision happened to be given just when a Methodist conference was sitting. 'Needless to say, the Methodists expressed their disapproval in_ a lengthy resolution. ' The matter might have ended there, had not the City Council replied flippantly. That started a furious argument—one of an endless series extending over recent years—about Sunday sport generally. Except that there is no horse-racing, and no official competitions, one may see as much sport in Sydney on Sundays as on Saturdays. The parks are full of cricketers or footballers, every tennis court is occupied, the golf courses are crowded tothe point of embarrassment, the swimming baths are almost a mass of sun-browned shoulders, and the roads out of Sydney are thronged with carloads of picnickers. The people from the half-empty and neglected churches quite naturally fulminate against "Sydney's adoption of the Continental Sunday."

People of moderate views—not necenBarily anti-Church—have been expressing themselves ratber freely in this controversy. They suggest that the Nonconformist churchmen, who seem to be making the loudest protests, should accept facts. Sydney people, iv no circumstances, will not shut themselves up in their homes or in churches on a fine Sunday, when everything calls them t« the out-of-doors. If the churchmen coi> • tlemn them for surfing, or golfing, o* motoring, or playing tennis, then they fiimpry ignore the churchmen and their churches. The result is seen in the r» marknble neglect of the churches by tlu> young Sydney people. In these days—m the summer months, at' all events—very few young people are to be found in th». city churches. But if one would sur* on a line Sunday afternoon one literally has to elbow one's way through the crowds of young folks on the miles-lons Sydney beaches.

A survival of the old churchgoinjr Jays is seen in the fact that all tho Sydney trams stand idle and noiseless batxveeu 11 a.m.. and noon on Sundays. But no such restriction applies to tho buses, with which Sydney hap beou flooded in recent years, igo, while the irams stand idle, in long rows, the fleets of noisy buses roar past the churches, carrying the city's traffic—mostly crowds of happy people bound for tho beaches It is an absurdity at which everyone laughs—but the authorities, seemingly, are afraid to sgy ;:g thing about it; they fear those lengthy Nonconformist resolutions. ■: ... . •_•; ■ •,-