The Daily News. MONDAY, DECEMBER 11. FREEDOM AND FOOTBALL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8000, 11 December 1905, Page 2

The Daily News. MONDAY, DECEMBER 11. FREEDOM AND FOOTBALL.

No true sjioi-t in New Zealand can have follow 1 the tulmiitiious succes of this colony's footballers in the Homeland without inixeil feelings. It is not only that we sis roloniuls or colonists are nroml of the prowess of tlie men we sent uwy in the mere game of I jilting :i ball between ilis

taut sticks, lint that they lejro.seiit in :i marked degree the qualities that we, with becoming modesty, hope we as a people possess. It is not, in our opinion, that the Home-grown person is inferior to the colonial article in skill or physique, or knowledge of the game, although in cases he mav lie inferior in all lespects. It is that the man of the colonies possesses an alert mentality, fostered by freer conditions than those obtaining elsewhere, giving vigour, cor tidence, and, ibove every other qualify, individuality. It is the colonist's qualification of ■' looking after" himself, his ability to discard cast-iron rules, his scorn of convention, that not only give him an advantage in the field of s[>ort, but iu the art of warfare and in the industrial game. He hasn't developed this latter virtue to a very large extent to date, but in a colony which has quite horrified other countries by its sweeping scorn of cut and dried methods, it is obvious that this scorn is a very great help to a young people, wanting to win upward iu industrial life.