"TRUE BRITISH SPIRIT"

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 251, 17 July 1920, Page 6

"TRUE BRITISH SPIRIT"

——*. SIR GEORGE CLIFFORD'S TRIP

HIS FATHER'S EXPLOITS RECALLED The very general respect and unbounded confidence which Sir George Clifford lias earned throughout sporting circles in the Dominion was testified to at yesterday's sitting of the conference of New Zealand racing clubs. Sir George Clifford, who was unanimously re-elected president of the conference for the ensuing year, was made tho subject of very eulogistic references by the Hon. E., Mitchel6on, the Hon. 0. Samuel, and other delegates. Mr. W. ill. Bidwill, in referring to the action of Ihe firemen in denying Sir George Clifford a passage to. Wellington on the terry steamer, said that the president had go't over the-se o.bs-ucles in true British spirit. He had set at nought the unfair tactics adopted by the section of Labour concerned, and in company with his two daughters ho had made a supreme effort to bridge the gulf between the two Islands. He had come a long nistance. and no doubt had risked his life in traversing the Strait in mid-win-ter in a flimsy craft in order that ho might preside over the deliberations of Ihe conference. This showed what British spirit was, and what stuff the sou of one of New Zealand's early settlers was made of. (Applause.) Mr. Bidwill went on lo recall that Sir George Clifford's father in the early days of the Dominion made repealed trips from Flaxboume to Wellington in n schooner. It was but typical of tho old strain .that some fifty or sixty years later his son should hazard a trip across the Strait in a ste/jn-laiiiich. Tho conference was proud of its president, a man who would not be sat upon. Sir George Clifford, whose rising was greeted with cheers, said that ho was deeply affected by the. sentiments expressed by the conference. His own father had, he remarked, crossed ths Strait iu a whale-boat—sometimes propelled by sails and sometimes by oars, and probably this craft was even less comfortable than the one in which ho himself crossed. (Laughter.) Sir George Clifford added that his work was a labour of love, and his only regret was I liat all the reforms of tho turf which he had in mind had not yet been adopted. There were still tliinga that could be done to improve '-bo sport. Much, of course, had already been (lone, and he believed that the conduct of the New Zealand turf, so far as the observance of the .regulations nas concerned, was not equalled in any other part of the world. '••'',

Three cheers were then given for Sir George Clifford, and anolher round for the Misses Clifford.