SUNDAY CINEMAS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21358, 6 December 1932, Page 9

SUNDAY CINEMAS

PROTESTS IN LONDON OBJECTION TO LONGER HOURS [from our own correspondent] LONDON, Nov. 1 The Entertainments (Licensing) Committee of the London County Council is to present a report recommending that, Sunday cinemas shall be opened at an hour which will permit the exhibition of films to begin at 5.30 p.m. instead of 6 p.m., upon condition that the 272 cinemas in London shall contribute £150,000 a year to charities. Letters of protest have appeared in the press. The Bishop of London.expresses his consternation at the proposal. "We of the Church of England in London," he says, "have taken up to the present what many people think a too broadminded lino about opening the cinemas on Sunday evenings, but we were anxious not to seem to wish to drive people to church by preventing them going elsewhere, and thus merely leaving them the streets in which to spend their Sunday evenings. But this new proposal means the breakin, of all the Sunday schools and children's services in London. It seems impossible that the London County Council should pass such a drastic proposal without any consultation, so far as I know., with any religious body. I have written -to the chairman of the London County Council protesting against such action." _ Bishop Perrin, chairman of the Imperial Alliance for Sunday Defence, writes: "The scathing remarks of the Judge m the High Court, when all such entertainments were declared, illegal, have evidently had no effect upon the London County Council, but I hope that sufficient influence will be brought upon the members to reject this proposal. "Thoso interested in dog racing and _ called boxing, which, in reahty/is prizefighting will be only too ready to accept a similar offer. The Archbishop of Canterbury in weighty words has lately pressed home the absolute need of bun day as a day of rest and worship. \\ hicbever way we look, at home or abroad, the times are full of anxiety,.,but toquoto St Paul's words in the lipistle to Corinthians, 'We are perplexed, but not in despair.'