"PLAYING THE GAME"

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2430, 8 April 1915, Page 8

"PLAYING THE GAME"

NO SPORTING INSTINCT. IN THE GERMANS. Would tho German armies have accomplished more if, in addition to their fine military training and discipline, they had had moro of the "sporting instinct" in their ranks —that is, if tho majority of German men were devoted to field sports in the same way that the English and Australians are devoted to them? Gorman pedants And professors have sneered at the English as a "longlegged, decadent race, wlio think of nothing but cricket and football," but the theory lias been advanced by some [ English sportßmen that the Germans ' might have done better in this war if they, as a nation, had been animated by the sporting instinct as well as the i desire to conquer. Sportsmanship in ■ its nobler meaning is defined as "action 1 that is guided by honour and sanc--1 tioned by fair play." The Germans are ' entirely lacking in the sporting instinct i as tho Englishman and the Australian , understand it, because their young 3 men do not indulge in field sports to i any large extent. In this regard the well-known English sporting paper, the "Field," makes the following remarks:— "With, the sporting instinct there is no knowing what the German millions might have effected. AVithout it their mailed fist and shining armour will prove but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. For no preponderance in numbers, no amount of drill or discipline, not even -the most reckless sacrifice of 'cannon Fodder' by officers who have never been under fire before, could give the certainty—to a nation which has never played tho game —of victory in tho greatest, game of all. Germany will be vanquished, not by material rivalry in preponderance of troops, but by just those imponderable elements which she bo mistakenly derided, by the loyal re-