SUNDAY TRAINS.

Evening Star, Issue 20140, 3 April 1929, Page 11

SUNDAY TRAINS.

tO THU KDITOIt. . Sir, —The efforts made by a small section of the populace to stop the public from enjoying themselves as they see fit to make it difficult to exercise a restrains which here seems out of place. The desire actuating the people who attended tbe deputation to the Hon. Mr Taverner in Dunedin is to deprive the poorer classes of the means to get out and about on Sunday, for no measures can be hoped lor against those fortunate enough to own, or who can hire or borrow, a motor conveyance. In the insistence about Sunday trains and the silence regarding the much more extensive practice ol Sunday motoring and trams, these pious citizens show their partiality, and one wonders if that silence is accounted for by the fact of a considerable number of churchmen, and those the financial ones, being proud possessors of motor cars.

The mention of the workers who may bo called upon to work on Sunday is, to put it bluntly, hypocritical, since everyone knows that th substitution of another day during the seven would satisfy almost everyone, inasmuch as the day granted under such an arrangement would not then bo the one which Sabbatarians have managed to lay a partial blight upon. These good Christians feel it their “ special duty,” etc., to voice a protest against Sunday trains, and they talk much about the “ best weliare ” of the citizens, and of the dominion as a whole. Jt is not, despite their protests, so much the welfare of the citizens which actuates our intolerant fellow citizens; it is the welfare of the churches, and Christianity which concerns them. Unable to gain the ear or adherence of educated people to-day the churches have during the last lew score years been steadily slipping downhill, and to-day the lament arises of man’s drift away from Christianity. Jt is simply to dragoon the people hack to the churches that opposition to Sunday recreation is voiced. Fanatical Puritanism, of which blight the deputation to the Minister of Railways is afflicted, once had power to censure the King of England for smiling on Sunday, and did it! That is the logical goal to which our religious brethren would guide us again. The orux of this opposition to Sunday recreation is to be found in the statement made by the deputation that they believed that Sunday was a day of rest by divine appointment, and, being by divine appointment, was for the best interests of the race. But, after all, the futile protests of an intolerant minority hardly merit further attention, if it merits what time and space have already been devoted to it. It is extremely to be hoped that the common sense and humanitarian attitude of the Railway Department will not desert it. and that in future the citizen of New Zealand can, so long as he does not interfere with his fellow-citizens, do what he lias a perfect right to—enjoy himself as he please on Sunday.— I am, etc.. 1 E.AV.F. April 2.