COUNCIL’S POSITION

Hokitika Guardian, 25 November 1929, Page 7

COUNCIL’S POSITION

DEVONPORT CLERGY’S REQUEST. 4 AUCKLAND, Nov. 21. The playing of organised games on Sunday on grounds controlled by the Devonport Borough Council was objected to by a deputation representing the North Shore clergymen which waited on the Council last evening. After a lengthy discussion the Mayor (Mr Ernest Aldridge) informed the deputation that he considered it impossible for the council to ban. Sunday games, although it would discourage them. “f think the world has progressed a great deal since the days of those Puritanical ideas which ruled in my youth Mr Aldridge said. Even if we have become too broad, judged by the standards of the Church, we have to reinemA her tliat we cannot enforce rigid rules in regard to Sunday observance in a community such as this. The council has and will discourage organised games, but I doubt if it decided to enforce the dictum that there should be no games at all on Sunday on public

domains whether it would be able to do so. Borough councils are governed not only by what is right, but also by what is expedient. It is a question of recouneiling these somewhat different aspects. “While I agree that it is nbt riglk in a rigid sense to organise games on Sunday, it is not possible absolutely to prohibit them, nor would it be expedient. The fault is not with the ministers, nor with your churches or their principles, but rather with the changed spirit that has grown up with the hurry of modern life and tire facilities provided by modern civilisation.” Mr Aldridge did not think that prohibitive measures would do any good. The council tried to lead public opinion, rather than he carried along in its stream, hut it would be futile wholeheartedly to oppose it. Tt would be entirely against public opinion and common sense to oppose Sunday games in Devonport.