TOO MUCH SPORT?

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18205, 16 October 1924, Page 12

TOO MUCH SPORT?

POSITION IN AMERICA. ;rSOM %VE OTS COBRtSFI KDEST.) ''AX FRANCISCO. September --• Not many years ago the writers in sporting rolumns in the American Vrcs? delighted in poking fun at Britishers for displaying a fondness for many se.-tious of sport at thai time .-onsidcred taboo by leaders of manly pastimes in the United States, and among these branches of sport were lawn tennis and especially golf. It was deemed by the smart scribe the heigh! of folly to swing a golf dub or even a tennis racquet. Times assuredly have changed wonderfully since that period and now tenuis courts in all the large cities are crowded during business hours and all day on Sundays with rich and poor alike, while the game of golf lias fairly overrun the whole of the country. Both games have become immensely popular and very few business men of America will permit business to inter- j fere with their pleasures on the golf , course. It is now stated on bigh authority that American industry is faced with two of the greatest dangers yet developed in the history of the country, to wit, week-ends and weak management. That, at least, is the opinion of one of the foremost, busi-nessmen-of the United States, who recently returned from an investigation looking toward American financing of European rehabilitation. Foreign competition and the high scale of wages now obtained in the United States arc not dangers to be feared, he maintained, and his opinion carries weight in banking and business circles. Inefficient and careless management he regarded as responsible for nine-tcnflis of the difficulties now being encountered by various lines of industry. "Too Many Golf Courses." "The trouble with this country," he said, "is that there are too many golf courses here. We are beginning to fall into the pit into which British industry slumped some time back. We are commencing to look forward too much to the week-end. • Businessmen and executives are starting it on Friday and finishing it on Tuesday. "When I came home, I found my sons hurrying to the golf links on practically every week-day afternoon. The excuse was that they had to take customers there and that by this means they could close business which could bo had in no other way. The customers had a similar excuse to offer, maintaining they could do business more advantageously on the links than in the office. Each * deluded himself into a belief into what he wanted to Believe. The same error used to obtain in the boom mining camps in the West, where it was the theory that it was impossible to buy or sell a mino or conclude a business deal elsewhere than in a saloon. "It is a strange thing that while American manufactureWa cry continually that they want Europe rehabilitated, they seem thoroughly unwilling to Bee Etiropo's debts to the United States cancelled or to see the countries of Europe in a sufficiently prosperous condition to pay. them. They harp on the fear of European competition. Any time a line of industry with the advantages offered by this country 'fears' European competition, it ought to go out of business. What the business executives really fear is that they will lose, not their markets, but their Saturday afternoons off. "The clear-headed, competent American business executive is not.afraid of our high scale of wages. He wants it kept high, realising that if he can utilise this highly paid labour to its maximum efficiency, through proper management and improved machinery, he need fear no low-paid labour competition. i French Working. "I motored one day 211 miles through j France. I did not see a single golf course, but I did see a lot of men and women working in the fields, not until the whistle blew, but until long after the moon had risen. However, if the trend is continued, establishment of ! continuous golf courses across the country may tend to solve curtailment of overproduction of agricultural products. '' This investigator, naturally, spoke figuratively with regard to golf, but his statement assumed decided importance in view of the frequent charges of Labour leaders that the move to rej duce wages in New England is t»; fore- ! runner of a determination on the part ' of manufacturers to force a lower wage scalo immediately after the Presidential election, no" matter which party | happens to be successful. Eegarding the statement that sporting proclivities are endangering the ! proper conduct of American business life it is a well recognised fact that I pastimes, such as baseball, football, and kindred sports, have demoralised manv of the leading colleges of the United States and every year the list of students "dismissed" through overindulgence in sport causing educational failures is growing very considerably. Only recently an announcement was made at Oxford that in future, no more American students could be admitted into college life beyond a certain quota and it was pointedly intimated that the Yankee studeuts obviously went to Oxford or Cambridge almost exclusively to idle their time in following varied sports, instead of applying themselves assiduously to college studies.