SUNDAY AMUSEMENTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18849, 11 April 1931, Page 5

SUNDAY AMUSEMENTS

RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE. “We cannot deny to others the freedom we claim for ourselves. What would be best in the public interest?" asks the British “Baptist Times.” “We suggest that all Sunday entertainments and amusements should be under the control of municipal bodies, so that there would be local option, and where the people wished for Sunday cinemas, or other shows, they would record their decision and get what they wanted. The matter would then be in the hands of the people themselves. “We agree with those who hold the view that Sunday entertainments which are entirely for private profit should be banned. There is need for an effective censorship of films. The present arrangement seems to be quite optional. “We are not without hope that the present agitation on the part of the vested interests will be defeated. Theatres employ a large number of persons as well as those who come before the footlights. The dramatic profession as a whole is opposed to Sunday performances. and the trade unions representting musicians and theatrical employees take up the same attitude. There is need for vigilance lest we should lose what little there is left of the English Sunday.” “The question of Sunday observance.” writes Mr. A. G. Gardiner in the “Star.” “is one to which the principle of local option is peculiarly applicable. Torquay’s sense of Sabbatical proprietry is not the same as Blackpool’s, and we have seen recently in the case of M. Chevalier that the public morals of Cardiff are more severe than those of London. “In these matters there should be room for the play of local option. If the city fathers of Cardiff are too strait-laced for the people of Cardiff, the people of Cardiff may safely be left to deal with them. If. on the other hand, they reflect the feeling of the town, why should that feeling be set aside by Parliamentary action? “Apart from this consideration, the course proposed offers the most immediate way out of the difficulty. And it is an immediate escape from the absurd dilemma that the public of London, and probably of many provincial cities which are in the same case, urgently require.” "Parliament should find time,” asserts the “Manchester Guardian,’’ “to pass a measure as simple and noncontentious as possible to clear up the muddle. Such a Bill would confer upon local authorities the power to do legally what many of them, with general acceptance by their communities, have illegally done. "There is little likelihood that any revolutionary measure for making a •national change in the observance of Sunday would pass without a severe struggle, and for that reason if for no other the proposal of the West End theatre managers to legalise any and all sorts of Sunday entertainments is not practical politics. "Local autonomy is the essential provision in any non-contentious proposal, for this is a matter in which the cathedral town and the popular seaside resort cannot be expected to agree. But a liberty which has been exercised in many places without cavil and which has incidentally been the means of providing large sums for charity should be restored as quickly as possible.” There is an interview with Mr. H. H. Martin, of the Lord’s Day Observance Society, in the “Record,” in which Mr. Martin states:— “The Stage Guild has recently sent a letter full of warm appreciation of our Sunday-closing fight. This represents that great crowd of theatrical employees of all grades, who know all too well the grave results which would follow even the first steps of a loosening of present Sunday observance laws. It has struck me as a strange oversight that those who are agitating for a compromise on the Sunday opening question appear completely to overlook these, the one group of people most immediately concerned. “We are daily receiving petition forms from every corner of Great Britain,” added Mr. Martin, with reference to the National Petition. “We set out to obtain a million signatures. Within a few days of launching the campaign we had received request 3 for 155,000 of these forms, each of whi ii holds twenty-one signatures. E an : 1ical Churches everywhere are ar.ii.ig for petition forms. General E Higgins, of the Salvation Army, has arranged for forms to be placed in every citadel and hall in Great Britain. From this source alone we are expecting 25J,000 names to be collected. Methodists Congregationalists, Baptists, and others are also in hear y co-operation. '•The evidence which we are rc reiving from ah parts of the Kingdom convinces me that when the great fight takes place on the floor the Ho’.i e of Commons, the power and strength of the Sabbath observance opinion throughout Britain will make itself manifest. "The Press may be largely against us. There are economic reasons which are obvious to any student of the advertisement columns of the papers. But the great mass of the people, and especially the workers who value their own day of rest, is opposed to a movement which they know will not stop with the amusement industry, but will, If It is allowed to get on at all, spread to other industries as well.