Rowing.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 23, 8 December 1900, Page 13

Rowing.

Trouble appears, to be looming with the N.Z.A.R.A. with regard to the matter of referring the championship and Lyttelton programmes back to their respective committees. The Christchurch Regatta Club have asked the association to reconsider their decision, but the Lyttelton Club have taken a defiant stand, and say they will not alter their programme in accordance w ith the association's wishes. The Christchurch Regatta Club will, no doubt, eventually do as the association ask them, but the stand the Lyttelton Club have taken is to be regretted, as what the association have asked them to do is only reasonable. It is not fair that Cantei-bury clubs should r>nt events on their programmes for boats that are not universally used throughout the colony, and not recognised by the association, whereas the same clubs go to other regattas, compete in boats which the association approve of, and then they practically debar the clubs whose regattas they have rowed at from competing at theirs, as no club north of Canterbury row in such boats. As an outcome of the trouble a circular has been issued by the Otago clubs, the chief aims of which are that the various centres control their own affairs, and use the association as an Appeal Council. They also ask the association to call a general meeting, to be held in Christchurch at regatta time, and it goes on to state the benefits that would accrue therefrom. It is quite evident that Canterbury has been making the bullets, and getting Otago to fire them; and any one after reading the circular can easily perceive that the whole affair is based on provincial jealousy, as it is well known that the Canterbury and Otago Clubs have all along; been trying to have the headquarters of the association transferred to Christchurch. The circular is signed "J. A. Stables, for the clubs," which is a very meagre way of allowing any one to form an opinion which clubs are dissatisfied with the present government. The circular might represent only two clubs, or nerhaps the Otago Association, and the only conclusion one can come to is that the clubs who issued it were afraid to sign it, not wishing their jealousy to be made public. The circular, in pointing out the benefits that would accrue, says that representative contests between the provinces could be arranged. This, as a matter of fact, would be unworkable. First of all, in a large town where there are a number of clubs, it would be hard to select four men, and to do so would lead to personal rivalry, as it is not like football or cricket where a selection committee can watch all the clubs week after week. In rowing we often find a good man mixed up with an inferior lot, and, if he is beaten badly, the selectors in nine cases out of ten would not consider any one in the crew as a representative. Another thing— m places where there are only one or two

clubs what chance would they have of winning against a town that could select a crew from say six? The circular refers to the Otago Bowing Association as an instance of what can be done by the combination of local clubs. There are two associations down south, viz., the Otago Rowing Association and the Christchurch Regatta Club. The Otago Association have been in existence seven years, and to showhow much they have done to foster rowing I, have only to refer to their senior regatta races, which are still rowed in clinker boats, whereas regattas which are held in small towns in other parts of the colony have their senior races in best-and-best boats. The Christchurch Regatta Club row ,the majority of their races in stump boats, which reather tends to lower the sport to the level of dingy races. The Lyttelton Club's regatta is coming to a higher standard are never conposed of all sorts of events — professional, sailing, Maori canoe races, etc., whilst races that would try to bring rowsidered; all that is thought of is the regatta purse. Let us go further North than Canterbury, and we will see the class of rowing that is indulged in. Every club has its best-and-best boats, and each is trying to outrival the other in obtaining better boats, so as to produce a better class of rowing. I trust that clubs will vote against the proposal of local government ; as if it is carried rowing in New Zealand will receive a great blow, as each centre would have its own rules, and be fighting against one another, and small clubs would not have a voice in anything. [An instance of this has lately happened in Christchurch, where the Regatta Club wanted to bar certain clubs in Christchuch from competing at their regattas.] So many classes of rowing would be indulged in that regattas would be a thing of the past, and I have not the least doubt that in certain centres we would soon hear of the socalled cash amateur principle being brought into force.