SPORTSMANSHIP.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 January 1925, Page 5

SPORTSMANSHIP.

A BRITISH IDEAL. PRINCE’S GRAMOPHONE SPEECH. The- Minister of Defence (Sir Heaton Rhodes) has received a. complimentary advance copy of a. gramophone record of an address delivered by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The British Gramophone Company have notified chat the proceeds of the sale of the record shall he devoted towards Field-Marshal Earl Haig’s fund for ex-service mien. The Minister stated that he had listened with pleasure to the record of the address, which was ’ concise and well and clearly delivered.. He hoped it would be the means. of adding a considerable amount to the fund. On the reverse side of the record are Coldstream Guards Band selections, including regimental marches, and male quartet singing of' “God Bless the Prince of Wales.”

“In speaking of the. character of a nation, composed as the British nation is,’’ said the Prince, “it' is impossible to edfine. it in one single attribute. But there is one attribute which Englishmen, Irishmen, Scots and Welshmen share in common; that attribute is love of' sportsmanship. To be a good sportsman, becomes the ideal of every British child born within the seven seas, as soon as lie can understand the meaning of the word. Nor is the ideal or the uneptauding of it onlyconfined to British men and boys; it colours the life of the whole nation, irrespective of sex. It teaches. men to respect women, and women to. admire manliness. If makes ns hard fighters, but good losers. It brings us often to success, yet never allows us to abuse victory. In it is the origin of our kindness to dumb animals, ' our fondness for games, our belief in physical fitness, our sense of fair play, our capacity for team work, our love of justice. It is that which gives" us o-ur ability to tolerate and allow the wildest difference of opinion amongst ourselves, and it is always a wonderful help to us in our dealings with other nations and races. It preserves what was meant by the old ideal_of chivalry, but makes it larger and more human. It bridges all distinctions of class; all difference of education, occupation ' or opportunity. It forms to-dav a link that welds each unit in our world-wide Empire, f

“There is not one of us but likes to be known 'as a sportsman. It was as a nation of sportsmen,' that- believed that a word given, should' be a word acted upon, that we went into the Great War. It, was in that spirit that hundreds of thousands of Britishers all over the world flocked to the. colours. It was in that spirit also that Earl Haig devoted himself, at the conclusion of the war, to help ex-service men and their dependants throughout the Empire. Those ex-service men proved their sportsmanship in the best and truest sense- of the .word, who today are asking a nation of sportsmen to honour a given word. Many of them are handicapped by wounds and sickness: others gave to their - country the years in which t'he.v might, have learned a trade. All took their trials like sportsmen, and have endured the consequences. Never let us forget those sportsmen and their dependants.”