SUNDAY SHOWS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 74, 28 March 1931, Page 9

SUNDAY SHOWS

LEGALISING BILL

COMMONS TO DECIDE

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, 26th March. The Home Secretary, Mr. J. B. Clynes, announced in the House of Commons to-day that, in view of the public demand for a review of the problem of Sunday entertainment, the Government would introduce a Bill for the purpose, not of advocating a parti- j cular policy, but of affording Parliament an opportunity to discuss the situation J which had arisen from the recent decisions in the Courts, and to find a solution which would approximate more closely to the wishes of the nation as a whole. As tho best starting point for free discussion, the Bill would accordingly provido machinery for regulating the existing practice. Local authorities would bo empowered to grant permission for Sunday opening, subject to such conditions as they thought fit, and provision would be made in the Bill J for a continuance of the existing prac-1 tice under which the Sunday opening of cinemas had been subject to a condition that the profits should be given to approved charities, and that no employees should be worked seven days a week. It would be for Parliament freely to determine whether the existing law, as declared by the Courts, should remain unaltered, whether the existing practice should be legalised, Oi whether that practice should be modified or extended. The measure, which would be loft to the free vote of the House, would be introduced as soon as possible after Easter. The Bill, Mr. Clynes added, would be drafted to permit tho oponing of theatres as well as cinemas.