CASH AMATEURS v AMATEURS.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9860, 9 March 1896, Page 2

CASH AMATEURS v AMATEURS.

[By Velox.]

In referring a fortnight ago, to the recent cash meetings in Christchurch, it was stated that the visit of Pither, Martin and Harris should do good to cashcycling. Judging, however, from what we have so far seen I do not think any benefit that may accrue from such a visit will be of a lasting kind. I understand that the " importation " of the three above mentioned wheelmen is a speculation on the part of some person or persons and that they are out for pure business and nothing else. It probably is a sort of cooperative affair, and the showing at Oamaru does not tend to the impression that the trio of cash men are in earnest oyer their racing. Exhibitions of riding would no doubt be a more correct way of putting it so j far as the Oamaru efforts are concerned. Those who patronised the cash men in the; capital of North Otago last Thursday are! not likely to be very much impressed with the professional way of carrying out a meet- j ing. Where amateur sport has not got ahold the Australian cash trio may work up some interest in wheel racing, if only of a i temporary kind, but judging, as I have already indicated, from what we have so far seen, amateur sport, in the South at all events, is not likely to suffer from the efforts of the cash clubs and their gatherings. As I said at the time cash cycling was started in New I

Zealand, there was no reason why amateur and should not exist. It would simply be a survival of the fittest so far as public support was concerned. In this connection the following extract from the Sydney Bulletin of February 15th is apropos :—" Give the cash-cyclists plenty of rope and they'll hang themselves, just as surely as did the over-petted cronk pedestrian. One utterly evil influence is the professional trainer, who bids his man win or lose as he (the trainer) thinks fit." This applies, of course, more to Australia, especially Sydney, where cash cycling is carried on in a larfle way. But where there are cash considerations we are sure to find undesirable elements and thus amateur cycling, from a pure sport point of view, has the advantage over the cash business. So far as Christchurch, however, is concerned the cash club and union had a great opportunity of booming their particular kind of racing, but I am afraid these cash bodies are not very strongly engineered concerns. No doubt the officers are in many ways estimable young men, but I fancy, had some older and more experienced hands been at the head of affaire the boom 'might have been made a big one for cash. The Fred Wood boom was a most enthusiastic and successful one, but the amateurs were also more alive in those day? and they worked the Wood attraction foi all it was worth.

The application to run a mixed meeting— that is to Bay cash and amateur eventß on the same programme—was refused by the amateur governing body, and .quite right too. The Alliance no doubt recognised that to grant permission for amateur events to be run at gatherings where the imported cash trio were the attraction, would simply be encouraging business speculators, which is certainly not one of the objects of an amateur governing body. , Fred Wood's case was quoted, but that was a very different sort of affair. Cycling was in its infancy then and the granting of permission to clubs to hold meetings at which amateurs might compete against Wood had the desired effect. It gave cyqling a great impetus, and there were several good reasons for the Alliance relaxingtheir rules on that occasion. There were no such reasons for granting the. application for amateurs to compete against Pitlier, Martin, and Harris. 1 have no objection to cash cycling as a distinct branch of racing, but amateur and cash should be allowed to go their own ways. One of the delegates—a racing ihan —was very much put out over the decision of the 'Alliance not to allow a mixed meeting, and threatened to go over to the cash ranks. This was a very poor kind of threat, the carrying out of which the amateur has since thought better of. The Alliance with regard to the Ken Lev/is business showed great weakness —it is not the live body it once was—but in the case I have been discussing, it certainly took the correct view. How they like the idea of Lewis— immediately after their whitewashing of bim into the amateur ranks —at once going across to Melbourne and racing for cash again, I have not heard. Somo have been uncharitable enough to say the Alliance or some of. its friends induced Lewis to go across and not ride in N.Z. as an amateur. Of course he cannot do so noM'.

However, I don't fanoy the Alliance is quite weak enough to be influenced by the writing in some papers, contributed to by members of the cash ranks, which suggest that the amateur governing body might as well at once amalgamate with the Cash Union and run cash cycling. There are surely plenty of young men yet in New Zealand who can afford to remain amateurs, who are not quite so sordid as to be only able to see in cycle racing a means of making money. The cash ranks are no doubt a bit weak in racing men and officials, but if their branch is the desirable one its supporters make out, strength will surely come in time. I don't fancy any combination is likely to com* i about yet awhile.