SATURDAY HALF HOLIDAY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14240, 21 October 1920, Page 4

SATURDAY HALF HOLIDAY.

IS IT POSSIBLE BEFORE CHRISTMAS? FEATHEESTON' sportsmen ask FOB A LEAD. (To the Editor.) Sir, —“We want the universal Saturday half-holiday,” was a statement greeted with uproarious applause at the. most successful and representative reunion of sportsmen held in the Wairarapa for years —the smoke concert given by Mr F. G. Maunsell, president of the Cricket Association.

The sentiment was endorsed by Featherston sportsmen present as cordial- * Iv as by anyone. Henc© this letter. * The Saturday half-holiday is suitffy bound to come. Admitted that it suitf> neither the convenience nor the leisure of a few, the huge majority and the practical arguments in its favour aretoo strong to be long resisted. Will, then, the larger centres give » lead? ’ What is the present position? Local sportsmen are given to understand that in all the Wairarapa business towns nine-tenths alika of the cmployers and the employees favour Saturday afternoon. The necessity for absolute unanimity is the one difficulty that delays tins inception of the new regime. Its benefit to summer sports is too obvious to need elaboration. In the smaller towns in particular, by uniting all players of bowls, cricket and ten- . nis on a common day, it gives that sense of numbers indispensable to the zestful competition and social intercourse. ’ Halve the players in these towns between Thursday and Saturday, ' and ’twixt two stools they come to the ground. Not only that, but they can put no punch into the inter-town rivalry so tonic in its effects on all forms of sport. The arguments apart from sport in favour of dove tailing the half-holiday into the weekly “let-up” are too obvious to need recapitulation. We pass on, therefore, to the practical question, What can be done? Cannot. all sporting bodies and organisations like-minded get under way with a universal Wairarapa half-holiday proposal to materialise before, say, the 1 Christmas holidays? If common cause jA is made from Eketahuna down to Featherston, there is good Teason to thins the thing, can bo done. Hoping that the above will attract the attention of both supporters and opponents and that a popular decision . one way or the other will be reached at an early date,—We remain, M. B. TAIT, K. KENWOOD, F. L. COMBS. On behalf of meeting held in Featherston, 13/10/20.