SUNDAY BAND CONCERTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19086, 3 August 1925, Page 9

SUNDAY BAND CONCERTS.

DUNEDIN COUNCIIL'S VIEW. PERMISSION AGAIN REFUSED. The oft-recurring question of entertainments on Sundays again came before the Ihmedin City Council hist week. The result, after a brief but keen and pointed discussion, was as before a narrow majority in favour of declining a request for permission to hold a Sunday evening band concert and take up a collection for a charitable purpose. The Dunedin Bands' Association wrote asking permission to hold a benefit concert on a Sunday evening within the next few weeks and to take up a collection to assist the widow and family of a bandsman who had recently passed away. Mr. Hay ward moved that the request be granted. Mr. Scott seconded the motion, and expressed the hope that their religious scruples would not be of such a nature as vjtould prevent them from giving a hand to someone in distress. Mr. Wilson asked if the bandsmen could not give any other night of the week to help one of their own number. The Mayor: They are working. Mr. Clark (incredulously) : At night? Mr. MacManus said that a number of the bandsmen were called on to work during the evening. Mr. Clark: How do they get their practices? Mr. MacManus said ho could not understand this attitude. Ho had spoken at the Central Mission on a recent Sunday afternoon, and the authorities there had thought it desirable to have a band present. He thought such a worthy purpose wias deserving of every consideration from the council. The Mayor .said that some people thought the bands should not be allowed to give entertainments on Sundays. He had always differed from them. It would be far better to allow the bands to play and take people off the streets. He saw no more harm in playing on Sunday . evening than in playing in the afternoon. Some people took too narrow a view of things. Mr. Clark said there was not a single councillor there who had the slightest objection to bands playing on Sunday. That was not before them at all. The question was: Were they willing to allow a concert at which a charge either by collection or by admission was made to be held in one of Iheir licensed halls on Sunday? , The motion was lost by seven votes to six. The Mayor: All right! I am sorry, gentlemen. I think we are 50 years behind the times. I remember the time when we vdere not allowed to whittle a stick on Sunday.