The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 22, 1912. INTERNATIONAL GAMES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 54, 22 July 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 22, 1912. INTERNATIONAL GAMES.

An Olympiad is being held in Sweden at the present time, and highly-trained athletic specialists are striving for honors, championships and supreme positions. In the great world bf'national and international endeavor an Olympiad does not matter twopence. The origin of the Olympiad is, as everyone knows, the fine feat of an ancient Greek who ran an unconscionable distance with a it was necessaiiy to deliver this message, and he did the job well. Afterwards, for similar feats for unnecessary reasons, winners of long-distance races were awarded a wreath of bays. For many centuries manly games were lieM by all virile nations simply with the idea of conquest, the joy of victory, the animal instinct of triumph over a fallen foe. There is no analogy between the ancient gladia tor and the modern sprinter or even the modern long distance runner. High specialisation of one particular athletic activity is of no eaTthly service to anybody. The man who wanted brainy, healthy, normal men to undertake useful enterprises would not choose (hem from the competitors at the Stockholm Olympiad. He wouldn't even give Sandow or Ilackenschmidt a job. If he wore going to run the human race on the principle of general procreative fitness he would avoid highly-trained athletic specialists as he would the plague. The modern Olympiad represents 'an international abnormality, a world mania, and writers indulge in complimentary references to I lie "endurance'' of athletes, but the enduring athlete who has keyed himself up to Hie work of winning a 25-mile race is merely a fool. He is doing himself a great injustice and the world 110 I possible good. Like the sprint racehorse, the modern athletic specialist is just a freak. He the product of several ages of morbid desire to see individuals excel in some lino of athletic activity that doesn't matter a bit. The country that wilfully sends a human freak to an Olympiad is guiltv of utter foolishness, and the country that is proud of a human wei d Imping half an inch h:»l!:r than anybody else wants its coll.'dive "luad read." The cables said

a day or hvo sin-rc- Unit a competitor in I lie big race «ot to tho tapes in a dying condition. Hero? Certainly not. Fool? V\ hy. of course. Every oilier freak who breasted the tape without falling dead stuck a few more ru.ils in his own coffin. If (he person who rushes to the theatre to admire the idiot who thumps a piano for some days at a stretch could sec that so far from doing the human race any

good freak endurance performers are <! simply very foolish abnormalities. There J i 3 no record of a highly-specialised —the result of machine training—ever having accomplished any useful purpose. The general admiration for human freaks is a symptom of decadence. In gladiatorial times there were few gladiators and many hysterical spectators. Rome decayed. In prize-fighting days (modern prize-fighting is moving-picture guff), only an odd man brute here and there pounded away for a purse, and the people who stood outside the ropes called the ] earth to witness what fine fighters the English were. Apparently several countries attach some importance to the results of these international athletic competitions. They have no importance of any kind, they are perfectly useless as showing the physique of any race, and are, indeed, the occasion for much international jealousy. It doesn't matter to this old earth who wins the Marathon race, for when it is won the net result is transitory glory for someone, and a large assortment'of strained hearts for men of many nations.

THE WOOL CLIP. We havo received a copy of Dalgety's Annual Wool Review for Australasia for the past season, published by Dalgety and Company, Limited, which is now in its fourteenth year of issue, and, as customary, appears to have been carefully written, while the statistics, which relate to the whole of tho Australasian sales, are complete and comprehensive. J There are a number of interesting facts given in the publication, the most prominent of which probably is that the value of the past season's wool production in Australia and New Zealand, for export, \was *29% millions sterling, as compared with 31% millions sterling for the previous season, the difference in the value of the two clips being accounted for by the average valuo per bale in 1911-12 having been £ll 15s sd, and in 1910-11 £l2 10s 4d. As was forecasted in Dalgety's last year's Annual Review, the Australasian clip exceeded that of the j previous year, which stood at the high water mark and was above the general average of excellence. Actual oversea shipments of wool during the past twelve mouths have amounted to 2,020,547 bales (or 062.845,90711)) from the Commonwealth, and 493.368 bales (or 109,915,939 : lb) from New Zealand, a total of no less than 2,513,915 bales, or 832.701,840 J lb, valued at £29,591,874. The total | value of the 1,020,026 bales sold in Aus-' tralasia has been £22.682,000, as against j £23,340,002 in 1910-11. The docks in | Australia and New Zealand now total 117,011,054, having increased since last year's returns were published by the' comparatively small number of 077,484 head. Sheep numbers have remained practically stationary during the past three years, but the figures are higher than during any period of the past 18 years, the previous record having been in 1891, when the total reached 124,991,920 head. The smallness of the increase in recent years is largely attributable to the very large numbers which have been slaughtered for export and local consumption, and it is significant that the opinion is generally held that sheep numbers were, prior to tho drought-, quite as high as could with safety be carried in normal seasons. There has been a general all round improvement in the larger (locks, and a very high standard has been reached, especially in respect to merinos, a fact which wiil be appreciated when-it is remembered that though there were many more sheep to shear, say 20 years ago, the clip shorn during- the past season eclipses all previous records, while the weight cut per bead is greater than in any country in tho world without any deterioration in i tho wool, which comes an easy first, • though it may not be so fine in quality as formerly. As regards the future, Dalgety and Company, Limited, say that there are several factors which are likely l to have an important bearing on the . course of the wool market during the ensuing twelve months, the first of these being tho certainty of diminished Australian wool production owing to the severe, though short, drought recently experienced throughout most of the woolgrowing districts of the Commonwealth. ; Another is the great probability of a revision of the American wool tariff in favor of oversea woolgrowers, some pronouncement in respect to which may be [ expected after the Presidential election Mn November next. The third is the fact of favorable trade conditions generally, practically only affected at .the present time by industrial troubles. Summing up the .position, as. it affects wool .producers'. they are of opinio" that the ensuing Australasian clip wi.i come on to a favorable market, and that there wtfl be a strong demand from all sections of buyers at prices showing an improvement on the rates in force in the past season. Tho clip as a whole cannot be equal, either in quality or condition, to its predecessor, in addition to which it is inevitable that (here will be a lighter cut per sheep, so that the enhanced values which it seems very likely will rule should compensate growers to some extent for the drawbacks which we fear most graziers will experience.