TOO MUCH SPORT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 21 November 1924, Page 3

TOO MUCH SPORT.

BEMOR ALI SIN G A MEII ]GAN S

Not many years ago. the writers in sporting . columns in the American press delighted in poking fun at Britishers for displaying a fondness for many sections of sport- at that time considered taboo by leaders of manly pastimes in. the United Starts, and among these branches, of sport were lawn tennis and especially golf (writes the San Francisco- correspondent of the Auckland Star). It was deemed by the sin art circle the height of folly to swing .a golf dub or even a; tennis racqifet. Times assuredly have changed wonderfully since that period, and now tennis courts in ali the large cities are frequented during business hours and all day on Sundays by rieh x and poor alike, while the game of golf has fairly overrun th.e whole of the country. Both games have become immensely popular, and very few business men of America will permit business to interfere with their pleasures on the golf course.

It is now stated on high 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. Thai, at least, is the opinion of one of the foremost business men of the United States, who recently returned from ap investigation looking toward American financing European rehabilitation.

Foreign competition and the high scale of wages now obtained in the United States are not dangers to be fared, he maintained, and liis opinion carries weight in banking .anti business circles. Inefficient and caredess management he regarded as responsible for nine-tenths of the difficulties now being encountered by various lines of industry.

“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 winch British industry slumped some time back. We are commencing to look forward too muc-fi to. the Veek-encb Business 'men and executives are starting it on Friday and finishing it on Tuesday. ‘‘When I came home \ found my sons hurrying to the golf finks oil 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 be had in no other wav. 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 mine or. conclude a business (leal elsewhererthan in a saloon.

“It is a strange thing that, while American manufacturers :iy continually that they want Europe recabilitated, they seem unwilling to see Europe’s debts to the United States cancelled, or to see the countries of Europe in a sufficiently prosperous condition to pay them.' They ha-u on the fear of European competition. Any time a line of industry with ti/e advantages o fie red 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, kut their Saturday afternoons off. “The clear-headed, competent American business executive is not afraid of our high scale of wages. He wants to keep it high, realising that if lie can utilise this highly-paid labour to its maximum efficiency, through proper management, he need fear no low-paid labour competition. “I motored one day 211 miles through France. I did not see a single golf course,- but 1 did see a lot of men and women working in the fields, not until the whistle blew, but 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 over production of agricultural products.”

This investigator, naturally, spoke figuratively with regard to golf, but bis statement -assumed decided importance in view of the frequent charges of Labour leaders that the move- to reduce wages in New England is the iorerumicr of a determination on the part of manufacturers to force a lower wage scale immediately after the Presidential election, no matter which party happens to be successful.

Regarding the statement that sporting proclivities are endangering the proper conduct of American business life, it is a well-recognised fact that pastimes such as baseball, football, and kindred sports have demoralised many of the leading colleges of the United States, and every year the list of students “dismissed” through oyerindulgence in sport, causing educational failure, is growing very considerable

Only recently an announcement was made at Oxford that in future no more American students could he admitted into college life beyond a- certain quota, and it was pointedly intimated that the Yankee students obviously went- to Oxford or Cambridge almost exelu.sivelv to idle their time in following varied sports, instead of applying themselves assiduously to college studies.