FOR CRICKET HONOURS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 107, 7 May 1909, Page 6

FOR CRICKET HONOURS.

The great games have begun; the Australian cricketers are busy through the summer days in trying to prove that they are more supple in ths wrist, more true in the eye, more stable in body, more versatile in mind, than the champions of Old England. The experts have not yet settled whether the Commonwealth's strongest force has. invaded England, but in the spirit of sport the team has to be regarded as the best combination available to establish the prowess of the younger lands. Possibly the ardent friends of the Navy and the .men who are advocating, an extensionof the territorial scheme may regret the advent of the cricketers. Perhaps they have gloomy visions of a total loss of the effect gained by the military melodrama, "An Englishman's Home," and by all the speeches which urged an increased attention to national defence and a lessened regard for sport. The very serious people are well aware that in other days, when Australians arrived to fight for the cricket laurels, the masses of the Motherland were more interested in trying to guess how many runs Jessop and C. B. Fry would make against the bowling of Noble and Trumble than in estimating how many Dreadnoughts the Kaisor might have in his mind's ej'e. Australia and New , Zealand — as the much-telephoned newspaper offices know — will also seem to be more curious about the issue of the test matches than the fate of Governments, but it is easy for the pessimist to deduce cynical epigrams from popular enthusiasm aboufc a battle of athletes. Not by the^r sword alone is an empire won and held. The bat may play its part in swaying the parts together. The victories of the All Blacks in Great Britain did much more to impress the people there with the fact of New Zealand's vigorous existence than - many lectures, many despatches, many minor advertisements had done. The triumph of Australia in a cricket test match conj vinces the Briton that the Commonwealth is something more than a vague place in regions beyond. British statesmen do not .come much to the outlying parts of the Empire, but much of the mischief which might result from that fault of omission is remedied by visits, i of colonial statesmen to Great Britain, supplemented by the invasions of the cricketers and footballers. The statesmen from these Dominions Overseas appeal to the intellects of the Empire's head-men, but the athletes appeal to the sympathies and sentiment of the nation at large. These matches do much to consolidate the Imperial brotherhood, and convince each part that the whole ' ! is great.