AN ENGLISH CONQUEST

Hokitika Guardian, 9 January 1931, Page 5

AN ENGLISH CONQUEST

(Exchange.)

During the present holiday season hundreds of thousands of men and women have been enjoying themselves playing games, watching games or sporib, or spending some sort of holiday in the open air. In the past twenty or thirty years New Zealand has been affected by a development common to the world. Interest in out. door sport has increased, and facilities for their enjoyment have multiplied. Participation by girls and women in sport of nearly every kind, from cricket land tennis to mountaineering, has been greatly extended, and the freer admission of the sex to frank comradeship with men in these pursuits has been one of the social features of the period. Comparatively fewj however, stqp to reflect that this country, in (common with the rest of the world, owes nearly all this development to England, or, if our Scottish friends prefer it, Britain. Of course, everybody realises in a vague sort of way that we derive our games" and our sports, and our tradition of playing and conducting them, from the Mother Country,’ just as we owe -to England our political institutions and our social and intellectual culture, but'the extent and importance of this is not fully understood, and it is pot generally realised that this local love of sport is part of a world conquest. < •

This conquest is dealt with, especially as it affects Europe, in most interesting fashion by an Austrian writer who knows England well. In “England. the Unknown Isle,” Count Paul Cohen-Portheim, discusses, with extraordinary understanding : and warm-ap-preciation the various phases of English life and the various contributions of England to world culture. His treatment of games is in keeping with the rest of the book. He understands perfectly well the place of games in English life; the tradition of fail;.play,

the ideal (which he realises, is not always achieved) of playing for'the sake of'the game, rather than the prize, and the importance attached to games in education and especially in, the making of the English gentleman. Character and personality count, for more than knowledge, and games, played in the right spirit, go to evolve the type of self-disciplined individualism that the English admire. He realises the truth of the saying that perspiration is the enemy of vice; his very kindly survey of the Oxford and Cambridge system, a survey that is in sharp contrast with the denunciation of many English critics, contains an acknowledgment of the value of outdoor games as a shield against sexual temptation. But lie is not only impressed by this reliance on games as a formative influence; he tells the Continent tlmt it does not. realise the enormous extent to which its social,,life has baen Anglicized through tlilT medium of sport. That games like football and tennis have spread throughout Europe' is only .part of the conquest, English ideas and English habits and English fashions have gone with them, and have destroyed the results of centuries of convention. The clean-shaved athletic type of young man is now European in his habitat, but he is English in origin. The athletic gill, who is man’s comrade of the open air. is also an English creation. In til? author’s words, “the type of the English Gfirl has carried all before it in real life, as well ason the stage, and with her the English Boy—where are the moustaches, the high stiff collars, the officer-type of yesterday now?” English ideas of conducting life have ousted all others.

So acute a critic as this is, of course not blind to the other side off the shield. The cult of games develops manliness and self-control, and is a protection against morbid introspection, but it can easily become an obsession. Over-done, it is an enemy of the intellectual life, and its danger in this direction has been the subject of innumerable warnings in England. In an ideal world the Continent would gain by contact with the best features of the English love of games, and England would benefit by a strong infusion of the Frenchman’s and the German’s keener interest in things of the mind. It is of great interest, however, to read this impartial observer’s tribute to English influence. Many Britons are uneasy about the influence of ; the American film. It advertises American manners and morals. It is a setoff against this to know that ev ( eu before this industry began to operate in this way English customs were exerting a profound influence upon European life, and, indeed, life iu every civilised country, and that the process continues. The historian of the future may bracket this love of sport and its tradition of comradeship and chivalry. with the conception erf the free State and the general spirit of toleration and-good humour, as among England’s greatest gifts to the world.