The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 12. A NATION'S DEVOTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 106, 12 August 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 12. A NATION'S DEVOTION.

There is an excellent picture in a recent number of a humorous publication. An apparent laborer is shown talking to a merchant. The merchant asks him if he has plenty of work. The man replies: "Well, you see, I could get plenty of work at present; but I'm so .keen on cricket that I can't spare the time." Another picture shows an employer in conversation with a working woman. "Can your husband start work for me to-morrow, Mrs. Jones?" "I'm afraid he can't, sir.. You see, he's got to go with the unemployed procession." Both of which are very fine satires. It is unkind to suggest that there are any young men in New Zealand who would rather barrack at a football match than work, and there are thousands of young men who really do employ themselves in productive pursuits between matches, but it is observed that in many cases the mere daily toil is never allowed to intrude as a subject to the displacement of sporting topics.. One is hot very sure whether this national worship of sport is altogether a desirable thing,, and it has yet to be proved that a general devotion to it has the physical and mental effect that is .claimed by devotees. Whether the New Zealand sporting ( young man has the high ideals of devotion to country, to home, to parents, which were the chief reasons for the physical training of the young Greek and the young Roman, is problematical. If he worships sport to the exclusion of most other things, it is foolish to preach to him about it. The only method to •pursue is to give him something else to claim his regard. The quaintest phase of the "sporting life" is that the greatest "sports" are not those who play games, but those who watch them. "Barracking" in New Zealand and Australia is as great a pursuit as football itself. It cannot be held that the barracker is doing much for home and country by yelling himself hoarse about a game he never plays, even if he shouts through a megaphone—a habit that has crept into the art of barracking in the pas? few weeks. Observing the disposition of some sports to forget the little niceties of behaviour, it seems probable that a wholesouled devotion to sport does not always breed fine instincts. The outsider who comes to New Zealand is amazed at the vigor, earnestness and seriousness that is shown by most classes in the field of play. Sport is less of a pastime than a planned pursuit. The man who boasts that he has attended every football match of importance for the past twenty years, claims admiration. If he plays, he is much prouder of being a sec-ond-class footballer than a first-class clerk or a top-notcher blacksmith, or a pre-eminent shop salesman. The majority of conversations on public conveyances and in public places is devoted tosome branch of sport. The man who does not know what Is going to "start" in the Chaff Stakes is looked upon as a person of weak intellect. Not to know the names and records of all the repre-. sentative football teams is to disclose unpardonable ignorance. It would be absurd to hold that we should become so serious as to abolish sport or to refuse to take joy in physical prowess, Man's admiration for physical prowess is greater than his admiration for any other kind of achievement, and this will continue to be so as long as the race remains normal and vigorous. But the proportion of men who indulge in violent physical recreation is small, and the proportion that makes the noise is extremely large, so* that most sport really and truly descends to commercial enterprise. The effect of the national devotion to sport is not to improve the people, but to produce a few abnormalities who can provide the people with sensations. In the eyes of "sports," the Johnsons, the Arnstsand the Beaurepaires are men of far greater eminence than the Asquiths, Lloyd-Georges or Lauriers. The conduct of sport Is, to the devotees, a much more serious matter than war in India, the British Bud-, get, or any other national or international matter. The present idea that sport is the most absorbing of all interests will continue until a country has to face a serious issue. Careless, happy-go-lucky folks, with more energy to devote to play than to work, can only be shown their mistake by harsh events, and in history the harsh events have always come to sporting and serious nations alike.