BEN TILLETT ON BOXING.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 48, 9 February 1912, Page 13

BEN TILLETT ON BOXING.

Says Boxer does not take the Risks of Miner, Sailor, or Docker. Ben Tillett, the well-known English Labor leader, says: "The hypocrisy ol tho agitation against boxing is, alter all, tho usual hypocrisy of cant and snuffle, which the Nonconformist is so ready to dole out to us. If deaths and dangers are any criterion by which to decide on sport or work, then the chemical workers, the workers in acids, the woolcombcrs, the dockers, the sailors, tho miners, the railway shunters, the victims of sweaters and the slums have a right to ask for the support of these reverend persons, who <Jo not take the unpopular and more humano side, but are prepared to kowtow to the groundlings of greed and cant. I trust sincerely that there will be a fight put up against the tribe of 'kill-joys.' To imagine that tyro lusty men, with skill and training to back them, scientific iv their capacities, are to he termed brutes is so silly that oven, a parson ought to realise what the libel means. The victims of the slum and tho sweating trade, the overworked drudge, have moro life and vitality knocked out of them ■ S'.'h day of their slavery than tho JohiiS'/Ti and Wells could lose in a strenuous fight. It is essentia! that ye should face the position taken up by tho crowd of notoriety seekers, who am neither looking after tho lifo, tho living, the health, the happiness, or tho rexhts of their fellow beings, but hang oiv like parasites to every fad that nay tickle the proneno«a to such weaks ess tho 'kill-joys' may have. The boxei does not tak« tho average, risks of the miner, the sailor, tho docker, or tho ci Mtsical and lead worker. Fighting does licit really hurt any healthy body; there xio oilier things which do, nut then Ihe happenings arc outside the ring and not in it,"