COMPULSORY SPORT.

Otaki Mail, Volume XXVIII, 26 March 1920, Page 4

COMPULSORY SPORT.

According to a cablegram the French War Minister is making football compulsory in every regiment, and has also instructed the military commanders to develop general sport throughout the Army. The line physique and fighting qualities of the Australians, New Zea- 1 landers. South Africans and Canadians, who are the greatest exponents of football, cricket and general sport in the world, probably led the French Government to adopt the course it has. It was said at one time that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing ground of Eton, but though correct to a certain degree the statement will not bear deep investigation because the men who comprised the rank arid file of those British lines which Napoleon could not break never attended Eton and they saw very little sport; but times have changed since then, and the late war shows that the greater a nation excelled in sport the better fighting qualities they possessed. We have only to look to the Australian and New Zealand troops for proof of this. The finest military experts jn the world are to be found in France, and when that nation decides on making sport compulsory in its army it may be taken as a great compliment to the British nation, and a stinging rebuke to men of Kipling type who talk rubbish about “muddied oafs and flannelled -bols.