RUGBY

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 120, 6 February 1923, Page 8

RUGBY

INSULT TO COLONIAL PLAYERS. Tho London “Times” prominently reports, under the heading “An Insult,” a letter to the editor of tho paper from Mr. Cecil Wray, representative of New Zealand on the English Hnbiy Union. protesting against the treatment meted out to G. G. Aitken, Rhodes Scholar for the Dominion, on the occasion of liis arrival in England, alleging professionalism against him. Tho letter is as follows: —

“Sir. —As representative of the N»w Zealand Rugby Union in this country. I think the public should know that the way in. which the amateur status of our Rugby players is being questioned over here is calculated to causo great resentment in New Zealand.

When a young Rhodes scholar, such as G. G. Aitken, who captained his side against the South African team only the other uay, is assailed wijliin a few days of his arrival here by a flood of Press criticism and gonc.ral suspicion—l expressly exclude iho “Times’'* in this reference to the Press - and, because he js a colonial, is putthrough a special form of inquisition as to whether or not lie has taken part in Northern Union football and generally transgressed the laws relating to professionalism, I feel it is hig.i time a protest was made. The New Zealand Union has put up a long and arduous fight against the insidious attacks that have been maac in every shape and form by those controlling the Northern, game in the Dominion, and it is a poor compliment to my union that one of Hie finest amateur players >ie have Produced for many years should bo subjected to this soil, of treatment. “Aitken himself feels deeply humiliated at the fact that he nas found himself in this atmosphere of openly expressed distrust from the moment of his landing in England, and I should like to put it to those responsible for these attacks upon him: Do they not think a young man who has earned a scholarshiji under the conditions laid down by that great Empirebuilder Cecil Rhodes, is entitled to better treatment when lie comes as a keen student and an enthusiastic amateur snortsman to the place we in'the Dominions call ‘Home’?”