LORDS' DEBATE PROBLEM OF LEISURE Baroness Burton of
Coventry WHEN in the House of Lords Wednes-
rose
on
day, May 13th, 1964, to call attention to the problem of leisure, she reminded the House of a debate during the previous month on the need for an increase of automation in British industry and commerce, and for effective planning to meet the inevitable changes which it would cause in our society. She said that in 1957, she had come back
from a conference in Geneva on automation and its effects on society with one thought firmly in mind: that the problem of leisure would be one of the great problems of the 1960's. She urged that automation must come at a time of full employment if it were to be acceptable, and reminded the House of the long periods of unemployment in the past when the unemployed could be said to have been suffering from "enforced leisure." When automation did come, conventional thinking on the subject of leisure would have to go. The benefits she foresaw were in this order of priority: shorter hours, lower prices, longer holidays and increased wages and salaries. But for automatic machinery to pay, it would have to be used round the clock, and bigger wage packets, more production and shorter hours would be possible only if shift work was accepted to keep the machines going. People would have to consider the social consequences: more shift work, week-end work, effects on family life. Monday and
Tuesday might
prove equally good as a time off as week-ends. She thought that a 24-hour working week was possible, but people might be able to decide if they preferred a shorter day the year, a longer day and a shorter week?or a longer day, a longer week, and four months off. Such develop-
throughout ments
not
impossible, but merely different. What, she asked, would be wrong with a seven-hour working day for five days a week but only eight months a year? When she had first thought of this in 1958 she had wondered if people might care to use that sort of leisure to take a trip on one of the gigantic liners built for the America-Europe Travel Project, and she thought that now with automation and were
increased leisure, world tourism and
holidays at home an becoming more important e3c 0 year. The great intimidating effect ,0 of leisure was "a expanding problem morrow to be dealt with to-day." whole business of
abroad
was
A successful scientific revolution of sort would mean that people had more ^ for the Arts and pleasures of life, and m?r^
time to give more voluntary service. ^ provision of facilities to enjoy leisure, widening of our minds to appreciate j"1 possibilities, the adventure of welcorni^ our new leisure must be a challenge foru to-day, and for the Britain of the future-^ Among the many speakers who foilo^e.
^
Baroness Burton in this debate was who spoke of two types of
Pe?P'
Amulree,
who had leisure thrust on them: elder' ' retired people, and long-stay patients hospital. He urged that ways should found of occupying them and saving t^e
from the sense of loneliness and isolate, and the physical and mental which was often a consequence of enfarc? idleness. ( Viscount Montgomery of Alamein felt the much more urgent question was to teat.f
degenerat'^ t
Coventry WHEN in the House of Lords Wednes-
rose
on
day, May 13th, 1964, to call attention to the problem of leisure, she reminded the House of a debate during the previous month on the need for an increase of automation in British industry and commerce, and for effective planning to meet the inevitable changes which it would cause in our society. She said that in 1957, she had come back
from a conference in Geneva on automation and its effects on society with one thought firmly in mind: that the problem of leisure would be one of the great problems of the 1960's. She urged that automation must come at a time of full employment if it were to be acceptable, and reminded the House of the long periods of unemployment in the past when the unemployed could be said to have been suffering from "enforced leisure." When automation did come, conventional thinking on the subject of leisure would have to go. The benefits she foresaw were in this order of priority: shorter hours, lower prices, longer holidays and increased wages and salaries. But for automatic machinery to pay, it would have to be used round the clock, and bigger wage packets, more production and shorter hours would be possible only if shift work was accepted to keep the machines going. People would have to consider the social consequences: more shift work, week-end work, effects on family life. Monday and
Tuesday might
prove equally good as a time off as week-ends. She thought that a 24-hour working week was possible, but people might be able to decide if they preferred a shorter day the year, a longer day and a shorter week?or a longer day, a longer week, and four months off. Such develop-
throughout ments
not
impossible, but merely different. What, she asked, would be wrong with a seven-hour working day for five days a week but only eight months a year? When she had first thought of this in 1958 she had wondered if people might care to use that sort of leisure to take a trip on one of the gigantic liners built for the America-Europe Travel Project, and she thought that now with automation and were
increased leisure, world tourism and
holidays at home an becoming more important e3c 0 year. The great intimidating effect ,0 of leisure was "a expanding problem morrow to be dealt with to-day." whole business of
abroad
was
A successful scientific revolution of sort would mean that people had more ^ for the Arts and pleasures of life, and m?r^
time to give more voluntary service. ^ provision of facilities to enjoy leisure, widening of our minds to appreciate j"1 possibilities, the adventure of welcorni^ our new leisure must be a challenge foru to-day, and for the Britain of the future-^ Among the many speakers who foilo^e.
^
Baroness Burton in this debate was who spoke of two types of
Pe?P'
Amulree,
who had leisure thrust on them: elder' ' retired people, and long-stay patients hospital. He urged that ways should found of occupying them and saving t^e
from the sense of loneliness and isolate, and the physical and mental which was often a consequence of enfarc? idleness. ( Viscount Montgomery of Alamein felt the much more urgent question was to teat.f
degenerat'^ t
