SUNDAY CINEMAS

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUNDAY CINEMAS

ANCIENT ACT REVIVED

(By

“Senex.”)

The Court of Appeal has dismissed the London County Council’s appeal against the High Court’s decision regarding the opening of cinemas on Sunday, according to a cable received on Thursday. The question cannot by any means be considered solved, for the case can yet, and probably will, be brought before the House of Lords. The campaign between the supporters of Sunday entertainments and their opponents has only just begun.

Considerable interest has been taken in the case since the first decision of the High Court. That decision was that the Sunday opening of cinemas within the County of London was illegal. The case was brought at the instigation of the theatre managers of London, who considered that if the cinemas were allowed to be open on a Sunday, the theatres should be also, and vice versa.

The statute upon which the legal battle was fought- was the Sunday Observance Act of 1781. According to a legal correspondent of an English journal the Act which has been invoked against the cinema proprietors is the most up to date of the three main English statutes dealing with work and play for the day. The others are the first measure passed in the reign of Charles I. in 1025, and the better known one of Charles 11. in 1677. The 1625 Act dealt with personal recreation, that of 167'7 with work, and the 1781 Act with professional entertainments for which a charge of admission is made. These were forbidden under heavy penalties and the places where they were held were to be deemed disorder.ly houses.

Incidentally, the Parliament, which passed this Act was responsible for the. measures which lost the United States of America to the Empire. The ghosts of its members, however, may perhaps plead that whatever muddle was made in America it is not their fault that their great-great-grand-children have not had the sense to alter a law which they refuse to obey.

The chief battles under the Act of 1781, states the correspondent, appear to have been waged round the old Brighton aquarium about 50 years ago, under its earlier' management. . Its directors opened it on Sundays with a band and reading room. An informer then set the Act in motion and claimed his share of the fine, a claim which two High Court judges had to allow, though they expressed their regret that they were obliged to do so. The aquarium then discontinued ite band and shut its reading room but remained open for other purposes. A second case was therefore brought and it was then held that, although not so much a place of amusement as before, it was still within the Act, and a new informer profited accordingly. Then the company tried to bar informers generally by allowing a friendly one to recover penalties, but this manoeuvre was defeated in the courts.

Soon afterwards, however, the Remission of Penalties Act of 1875 was passed to give the Crown the power implied in its title and to checkmate informers desiring to enrich themselves in this way. The absence of the old bait• or bribe may help to explain why no one has troubled to invoke the old Statute during the 20 years or more since cinemas have been illegally open on Sundays. The move, when it was made, came from rival entertainers with the grievance, not an illegitimate one, that they 'had to remain closed while the picture houses took the people’s money. In spite of the provision made in the Remission of Penalties Act against the personal enrichment of an informer, the writs issued early in December .against large cinemas and cinema combines by a “common informer” claimed large sums of money. The “common informer” was Miss Millie Orpen, and the writs claimed the total of £195.000, divided among five individual cinema houses and three cinema-owning combines, The managers of the cinemas concerned unanimously decided, in face of the writs, to keep their houses open each Sunday until the position was clarified by the appeal of the London County Council against the High Court judgment.

Even after the quashing of the appeal the battle is not yet won nor lost. Apart from the appeal to the Lords, there are many loopholes in English law and possible methods of circumventing an Act that there does not seem to be any prospect, with the present Government, of repealing. The possibility of alternative action by the London County Council instead of appealing against the judgment or supporting a new Bill such as that proposed by the theatre managers to legalise the opening on 'Sundays of places of entertainment within the County of London, was indicated by a legal authority. A much simpler procedure could be adopted—that is to say, -for the London County Council to secure a simple amendment to the Cinematograph Act of 1909 giving extended powers to local ■authorities to deal with Sunday opening as they think fit. In many areas of the country there is a large majority of opinion against Sunday opening. ■ln these places the local authority could prohibit Sunday performances. In others where they are wanted by most ■people they could be permitted.

An anomalous position is brought to light by the reference to provincial cinematograph theatres. They are not affected because only ordinary cinematograph licenses are issued and these do not specify the number of days on which a cinema may remain open. Consequently a cinema in a provincial city might open each of the seven nights of the week without hindrance.

The proceeds from the Sunday performances of the Jjondon cinemas are devoted to charitable institutions. A list of approved charities is drawn up by the London County Council. Any charity in the county can apply fo be placed on this panel and a cinematograph exhibitor can select from the panel the objects to which he wishes to contribute from his takings. At the present time there are over 260 cinemas •in the County of London and it is estimated that’ their total contributions to ■charity now amount to £200,000 a year.

Successive Governments, knowing that Sunday law is extremely controversial, have shirked the task of ■bringing it up to date. "Whether the ■present Government will have it thrust ■upon it remains to be seen. Meanwhile there is another hornet’s nest in the question of by-laws to permit or •forbid Sunday games in public recreation grounds. This may depend on the Act of 1625 under which offenders may ■be put in the stocks. The Act of 1781 is so recent that it does not provide for this penalty.