THE GREY RIVER ARGUS WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 1923. SUNDAY GAMES.

Grey River Argus, 25 July 1923, Page 4

THE GREY RIVER ARGUS WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 1923. SUNDAY GAMES.

The question of Sunday amusements again has cropped up, this time in the ranks of the local Bowling Club, ami it seems that the members who advocate the innovation of Sunday play have rather the better of the argument. There has certainly existed since Puritan days a rabid hostility in certain quarters to anything savouring of Sunday amusement, but the modern conception of the weekly day of rest is far different. It is undeniable that recreation is a veritable rest, mentally, and to a lesser extent pliysi-. cally. When it is recollected that the only holiday in the week for some folk is the Sunday, it must be admitted that they have a right to indulge in recreation on that day. There is really nothing incompatible with the religious observance of the Sunday in harmless amusement, as has already been demonstrated iu the cases of several forms of sport apart from bowls. Moreover, in many other places Sunday bowls are the vogue to the same

extent as Sunday golf or tennis. Re; eent-ly the Buller Rugby Union had occasion to seek tho endorsement of the Now Zealand Union for Sunday football, in order to meet the requirements of country players, whilst League football is already an established form of Sunday recreation locally. Some people who would not object to fishing, cycling, motoring and other recreations are opposed to games on the weekly day of rest, but the difference between games and such pursuits has surely no moral aspect. For the workers, it is becoming essential to confine amusements’ largely to the week-end, and Saturday does not allow very many of them any adequate opportunity for recreation in the open air, which is so essential for good health. In olden times, when the workers had many more holidays in the year, there did not exist the same need for amusements on the weekly day of rest, but, until present-day industrial conditions are changed for the better, recreation facilities are essential on Sundays. If the good people who wink at Sunday labour, but condemn Sunday sport on religious grounds, would give only as much thought to an analysis of their own ideas on the matter as they do to judging those of others who amuse themselves on Sundays, they would probably find out that the inconsistency does not lie in making the best of things, but in interpreting religion as a stopper on such recreation as still is obtainable by the mass of tho people.