A NOBLE LETTER

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 12 September 1917, Page 2

A NOBLE LETTER

HAVE YOU THE MEN AND THE TIME? GENERAL RUSSELL ON RACING. ■WELLINGTON, Sept 10, The following is an extract fr,om a letter received by Mr Percival Witherby, of Napier, from General Russell, on the subject of racing. It will be seen that the generaFiT'views are based on the necessity of maintaining and developing of the State in wartime, and are expressed in a broadminded spirit, which should do much to clarify the controversy as to whether racing should continue now or cease. The matter being one of public interest, Mr Witherby sought, and has obtained, the general’s consent to the publication of the extract in full: “June 10th, 1917.

“You ask for my views ,on racing. Personally, I see no objection to racing? or people enjoying themselves because we are fighting here. Let us rather go about life in a cheerful spirit and not with gloomy faces. lam afraid, though, that there will be too many who, through personal grief, will not want to join in much festivities. B'ut have you the men and time for racing? I can hardly believe it. Here one sees,' and because it is on a restricted area, and very much through the destruction war makes in a country. The true area affected by actual destruction, as the result of shell-fire and trench digging is after all, very small—a mere nothing, a thin pencil-line drawn on the map, with here and there a town; but what I think is not realised is the steady encroachment of Nature in a thousand ways all over Europe—weeds are growing and increasing everywhere. I speak of what I have seen. The roads are deteriorating, except perhaps in the war zone; drains are getting choked; land is impoverished for want of manure and efficient tillage; even the sea, as I have noticed in the only seaside places I have been in, is encroaching on the fronts. Of a truth, EurcTptTis eating her capital. Maintenance goes largely by the board for want of labopr and is it not the same, though perhaps in a lesser degree, in New Zealand? For instance, are your roads, etc., being maintained, let alone extended and improved? If not, there can be no time for all that racing implies. Every single man should be doing his utmost for the common good arid if there i s essential work to be done, every stableboy who is employed at racing is in his wrong place. ~ This war is not going to last for ever, and we are going to race again, for sure all work and no play is a poor life, but just at present we have got to work.—Yours Sincerely, A. H. Russell.” \