MILITARY DEFAULTERS.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17155, 26 May 1921, Page 8

MILITARY DEFAULTERS.

MANAWATTX RUGBY UNION'S'

ATTITUDE,

At a special meeting of delegates of the various football clubs under the Manawatu Union's jurisdiction, held in, ?almer&ton North this week, the question of. allowing military defaulters to play in competitions was discussed. "Mr C. White, who had brought the matter forward at the last meeting of the Union, said he thought that military defaulters should be debarred. Mr J. Smith, representing the Returned Soldiers,, in supporting , the' previous speaker, said it was not personal spite that had led his club to enter a protest, but they thought that it was their duty, to protest, for the sake of the. men who. had. fallen on . the battlefields, and for the sake qJ> tho limbless men. Mr Rowlands, Mif the Jackeytown Club, opposed the motion. He considered if they were going to debar the men in question from playing in competitions, the Union should go the whole way and prevent them entering the football fields. He mentioned that no other sporting body had taken action, and~he thought the Union very unwise in having anything to do with the question. The chairman suggested 4hnt the men who had forfeited all civil rights were the men to be prevented from playing. ■ The motion was eventually carried by 36 votes to 5. It was also resolved to insert a penal clause in the motion as follows:—"That any club, wilfully playing a military defaulter in their' teams be suspended, and that they forfeit the match id which the offender I participates."