The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY. APRIL 12, 1883.

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 6856, 12 April 1883, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY. APRIL 12, 1883.

The game of cricket has now been for many years recognised as specially the athletic sport of Englishmen. Wherever they settle cricket is played, and to whatever part of the world the Englishman travels to reside among his countrymen, he carries with him, along with his Bible and his ledger, also his cricket bat. Every year cricketing teams travel the earth's circumference, at large expense, to play big matches, and the scores of the players are transmitted, in elaborate detail, to the ends of the earth, together with the most important political events ot the day. There are some foreigners and strangers who object to tho publication in the Press of such records, as being of too small and too partial interest to the community. Eor our own part, like the great Edmund Burke, we “ decline to draw a bill of indictment against a whole nation,” even in a mere matter of taste. It may be fairly assumed that among English people, at any rate, cricket really possesses the importance generally attached to it. And for that reason it is usually the case everywhere that proper appliances for playing cricket—such as level grounds and good turf —are provided, at moderate cost to the players, and that they are protected in the undisturbed enjoyment of their game and in the preparation of their ground for that special purpose. * In Wellington, unfortunately, at the present time there is a dispute pending with regard to this matter. The Basin Reserve, as it is called, was originally a rough hollow with a drain running through it. More recently it has been vested by the City Council as a Recreation Reserve in the hands of three trustees from their own number, and in order that it might be suitable for cricket playing, it was enclosed, planted round with trees, ploughed up, levelled, and turfed. The local cricket clubs, seven in number at present, have on their part also spent a good deal of money, from time to time, on the ground, and have in addition paid regularly, in lieu of fixed rent, various moneys for the privileges allowed them. These were, first of all, we ore informed, .£1 Is for each match played, and now £6 6s per annum for each club making use of the place, together with 11s for each match played. The ground being badly out of order at present, and needing to be top-dressed and sown afresh at once so as to be ready for play next season, the Cricket Association, consisting of the seven clubs mentioned, were about to make preparations for the work when they were rather staggered by hearing that one football club, styled the Athletic Club, had expressed their determination to play on the Basin Reserve this winter, whether the cricket clubs wished it or not, as it was a public reserve. That the Recreation Trustees who have charge of tho ground are not backing them up seems clear from the fact that these last named have given notice that football is not to be played on the ground this winter, and in the memorandum of agreement between the City Council and the trustees,

empowering them to take charge of the ground, the word “football,” among the list of recreations, has been expressly struck out. It is a pity that there should be any unpleasantness, or even difference of opinion between the respective parties in this matter, more especially as there is proper room and accommodation in Wellington for both. The open space in the park at Newtown, though in every way suitable for football, is not for cricket, and would require a large sum of money to make it so. On the other hand, the Basin Reserve, upon which a good deal of money has been spent, is the only place to be found anywhere in Wellington upon which cricket can be properly played. And if the trustees allow the ground to be cut up by football playing just after the top dressing has been spread and the grass seed sown, it is tolerably certain that just when the grass is growing up it will be destroyed, and the level ground worked up into holes. As a matter of equity, and we should imagine also of law, whatever rights the Football Club may have as for themselves, they can scarcely have a right to injure others, and to destroy the improvements belonging to the trustees. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the ground partly belongs to the footballers, still no trouble or expense next summer would repair the damage done by the ground being cut up this winter. The well-known legal maxim seems to apply, “ Sic utere fcuo ut alienum non loedas.” Suppose the Basin Reserve were a soft swampy paddock in wet weather, as the Dunedin Oval actually is, how would the footballers like a polo club to take possession of it and work it up into a rough bog full of water-holes ? Tet they would in that case have even less cause to complain than the cricketers have now to complain of the threatened invasion, for they have not from year to year spent money on improving the ground, and the cricketers have. And to assert that the Recreation Trustees have no power to exclude footballing on the Basin Reserve, because it is a public reserve for recreation purposes, is no sound argument whatever. For if the Recreation Trustees have power to act at all, they have surely power to decide what are legitimate recreations on that particular spot. If they had not this power, another section of the public, with peculiar notions as to recreations on every and any spot, might take a fancy to erecting a big mound in imitation of that upon which “ The Belgic Lion” stands on the field of Waterloo, and the Athletic Football Club would scarcely care for that. We trust, however, that amicable counsels will prevail, for there is an utter want of any need for quarrelling. The dispute, which ought never to have arisen is one of the consequences of the foolish tenure of recreation reserves in New Zealand. In England the cricket grounds were, formerly, and many are still, private property, as Lord’s, Lillywhite’s, Parr’s, &c. In Yictoria and New South Wales they are almost all vested in trustees on behalf of particular cricket clubs, and we know well that in these two colonies there is not onetenth of the grumbling about cricket grounds that there is in New Zealand. The public generally there are better satisfied, and the cricketers ten times over more so.