Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1897. THE DOMAIN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XVIII, Issue 4362, 3 December 1897, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1897. THE DOMAIN.

A_ attempt is being jaa&df })j a small section of the public to show that the . Domain Board has acted unfairly and ' hfrshly towards some of the athletic clups la tjhe town, in requiring that ■ the .contracts ,mispps into in the past : sbpuld be fairly and strictly parried j ■ put. p may be as well to show howIj^ftitf^rs jhavje been brought to the! present pass, so that it may be seen■ |hja,t^the attitude Ojf t^e Bqmain Board; 4 * j^feetiy' logical ais pjr ( ud/enjt one. ■■ I . ** 6J_. yp. l°v. 8 ,c\. P,s ;i. -t. c habit [ In lb**, **mam 'm 4 the Sports. of using the - '"**■■«* il. b_?ti.c ground—combining as »'_ *4i_3._ Association—made an offer to Board to pay a rent of £25 a year for the right to do so ; this to include the right of having seven close days during that period; the Association to keep the ground in order. After a lengthy discussion, Mr D. Thomas moved that| the offer be accepted, and pointed out ( that although a considerable concession , would thus be made to the clubs, the ; general results should be satisfactory j to the public, The 08. r was accept, d, ,

and as tverybody who knows anything' about this matter is aware, the arrangement did not work well, owing to the difficulty the Association experienced in getting in the subscriptions, having no power to enforce payment. As a consequence, after two years' trial of the Association, the leaders of it baa to come b«ck to the Ho&rd and I sur.ender their lease (if it might be so i 1 called) of the Dotnaiu. Now, it must never be overlooked that, though the Borough Council has control of the Domain, the Domain does not belong to the Borough. The* ratepayers elect the Councillors to be sure, but those Councillors, after their election, hold their Domain Board appointments from the Governor of the C. iony. The Domain is the property of the whole I county, and, for that matter, of the

whole colony. The ratepayers of Ashburton have no right to be saddled with its maintenance, and it has ever been the aim of the members of the Board to make the Domain as far as possible self-supporting A good deal of tbe ratepayers' money has been spent upon the Domain, and well spent too; but there have been occasional grumbles that the amount annually expended in this direction has been too much, and that the Domain was being maintained at the sacrifice of other work of more pressing urgency in the I town. The Domain cannot be made | self-sustaining unless those who obtain the special use of it pay for the privileges they enjoy, and we know that these privileges, and the rents of the paddocks behind the sports ground, yield the only income from the Domain itself. It is all very well to say that the Domain Board is not liberal to Oricket Clubs and other bodies who use the Lomain. We contend that the Board is very liberal indeed with the ratepayers' money in this matter. The cricket pitch is kept as well as any cricket pitch in the colony is kept, and to ask a cricket

club to pay £20 per annum for tbe sole use of such a pitch and accessories as the Domain provides is by no means asking to_ much. The ground is carefully kept for the cricketers by a sptcial caretaker; watered, mowed, and generally maintained in elastic condition and prime form for first-class 1 play. If the district is not one noted for its enthusiasm in the grand old game, and the Club fails to Fcore gate money on the occasions when it gives special displays—that surely cannot be laid on the shoulders of the Domain Board, as the blameworthy parties, who are not in any way called upon to provide a first-class pitch for the special benefit of a club that cannot number more than twenty paying members. Ali sport has to be paid for. If a man fancies angling, he

lias to pay £1 license, and provide his own tackle. If he is devoted to the gun, there are certain classes of game he has to pay a license to be allowed to shoot, and guns and ammunition art ■jostiy. If he affects the turf, m mbership of any of the racing clubs entail? the payment of a stiff annual subscription. If music or art he his hobby i.t will find at the end of any year tb.*t that hobby has touched his pocket very considerably ; and the cricketers havf no right to complain of the amount of rent charged by the Domain Board for (heir pitch. There has been a waut of cohesion among the players of the game in Ashburton. There never shoufo have been a Junior Club here, trying to stand on its own feet. Had the Senior Club been made up of the true cricket enthusiasts that its members claim to be, all the boys who formed the Junior Ciub should have been absorbed by that Club, admitted at a low rate of annual subscription, and divided into junior elevens of the Club. We fancy that this would havesaved the second rent charged by the Board As ro the comparisons made between the Caledonian Society and the Athletic and Cycling Club, who have annual close days and big gate money, and the other clubs to whom those clofie days are not remunerative, it has to be borne in mind that the Caledonian Society pays its heavy rent for only one day's use of the ground. If its gate money is sometimes large its subscription list is larger, and the cost of maintaining the ground for its purposes is, in comparison with the others, nil. The Cycling Club does require a good deal of work done for it on the track, and pays its rent without a murmur." As to the Swimming Club —well, the bath is open to all who care to use it, and the rent charged from that club does not seem to us to be too heavy for the special privileges secured. As we have already stated, sport has to be paid for, and admirers of crpket, and adult players of the game, have pp rsasou at all that we can see to grumble at having to py the very moderate renjb the Board charges for the special use of a superb pitch, maintained for them at great expense. As to the spiteful things that have been said about Mr David Thomas's attitude in regard to the Board and its dealings v/ith the Clubs, it need only be pointed oufc that no uia,n in the county has done more for athletics than he has done since he first settled in Ashburton. His purse has always been opened when a call was made, and we do not believe there is a single man in tne district who has given wore #?oney for the support of cricket, and athletics generally, then he. And this is usually a fair gauge of a man's enthusiasm in anything. He works like a Trojan, too, in every ( club, and was an enthusiastic cricketer j himself until he reached the age when most of us find violent exercise like oriekeV playing p be less a pleasure | than a toil. To absae hijj? for requir'ing'that those who wish to dance should help to pay the piper is to play the part of the cur that bites the hand that Ms him. ;'■ ■.- :-• ,'''__ : i

If we may credit the correspondents of nearly all the great Continental journals, Portugal

stings on tbe brink j of State tyankr^ptcy. J Most of these lett rs i

• * **»4 4798? fJhfi oapifcaf, Lasbon, bat J are da _ *** ' *«W» P|?9 rt?— the I! those who wn., " - •*d _._|j second city in the kingdom, .. centre of a wine trade famous through- t out the globe—are unanimous in their fl judgment as to the desperate condition * of affairs. Tbe colonies, which still i, remain nominally the property of h Portugal, embrace an enormous terri r 1< tory; but risings and revolutions seem to b* the normal »tate of ti»«r

existence, and the mother «ountry is C too worried by her own iutemal j financi'il and political difficulties tv do anything for the maintenance of order amongst her colonial children. The official reports published at Lisbon tor ! lie information of the Portuguese citizens are sanguine and hopeful, but they are less worthy of trust than the private telegrams and lettprs which t_l a contrary tale. The suspicion that the monarchy is the source of Portuguese decline gains strength frcm day to day. In great natiorsal disaster a victim is nearly always demanded, and the victim in Portugal will not improbably be the King. The Republican agitation throughout the land has assumed greater dimensions than hitherto, and it will take all the wit

and energy of Luciano de Castro's Government to hold it in check. The attempts at repressive measures have not proved successful. The hope of ihe Government lies partly in the fierce quarrels amongst the leaders of the various Republican groups, #ho cannot agree what kind of Republic

should be erected on the ruins of the Monarchy, and partly in the comparative failure of the Republican pro-" paganda amongst the soldiery. If 't were possible to detach the sympathy of the army from the King, he would soon be obliged to abdicate or flee to a foreign land. The Lisbon correspondent of a Vienna paper asserts that the expectation of getting a great quantity of English money upholds the Government in its optimist views. Tbe money is to be paid for the transfer of Delagoa Bay from Portugal to England, and "it is just time," says the Politische Korrespondenz,«( for the 'English to get a very favourable barGain "