FRANCE WORRIED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 263, 5 October 1936, Page 7

FRANCE WORRIED.

TRAINING BOYS OF FOURTEEN. EFFICIENCY OF MANPOWER. France’s failure to take a high place in the Olympic Games, and the successes of Herr Hitler’s regimented athletes, are worrying thoughtful Frenchmen. The question of mass athletics, as practised in Italy, Germany and Russia, has been officially brought before the Blum Government (which since the Mate of this dispatch lias proposed compulsory physical training from the age of 14 years). Behind and overshadowing France’s standing in competitive sport is the more serious issue: “How efficient is modern French manpower in face of the growing threat of war in Europe?” With a population of approximately 43.000,000 against Germany’s 05,000,000, and with an excess of only some 48,000 births over deaths annually, France realised years ago that every man must count if her territory is to be successfully defended in a European war. To'-day the problem is aggravated by a new factor—the period when the toll of war years will be most keenly felt. The youths who are being called upon to-day to do their military service are the “war babies” of the years 1914-18. Because of the extraordinary drop in the birthrate during the war, the inilitai'y classes of 1935 to 1939 will be smaller. Their physique bears the imprint of their meagre start in life in years of hunger and distress. Russia and Germany knew the same problems, but mass athletics over a term of yean have presumably raised the stamina of their manpower in a way that may be impossible in a purely democratic eountrv. It is proposed to build up track and field sports in municipalities financed with Government grants for 'building fields and stadia.