MISUSED LEISURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 71, 25 March 1938, Page 12

MISUSED LEISURE

FORTY-HOUR WEEK

EFFECT UPON FOOTBALL

The conviction that the 40-hour week was detrimental to footballers was expressed by Mr. W. T. Parata, a member of the Maori Advisory Board, speaking at a meeting called by the Whakatane Rugby Union to consider ways and means of improving the standard of Rugby in the Bay of Plenty, states a Whakatane correspondent in today's "New Zealand Herald." Mr. Parata said that modern good roads should have removed the chief obstacle to the progress of the. game in country districts, but another bad feature had crept in. He was convinced that the 40-hour week was not helping football. The players were doing before the match what they used, to do afterward. They went to the hotels for drinks and were not in a condition to play. Hfe was in the trade and claimed to know what he was talking about. No doubt the law was made with the.best of intentions, but they were always breaking good intentions. The Government, he said, would have to do something about it as it was deteriorating the manhood of the country. ■ • : "We Maori people," he said, "3re very concerned about the five-day week because it is destroying the flower of our race."