THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 1921. SPORT AND EMPIRE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18324, 15 August 1921, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 1921. SPORT AND EMPIRE.

It might be difficult to over-estimate the value of- sport as a factor in the creation of the bonds that unite the different parts of the Empire. It would certainly be possible to under-estimate it. Rudyard Kipling himself, ardent Imperialist as he is, may be said to have fallen into the error of making too light of it. Sport makes an appeal to large sections of the population in all British countries that are languidly indifferent to political developments. The residents of South Africa whose anxiety regarding the issue of the test football match in Dunedin would, according to-a reliable authority, have banished sleep on Friday night last, may quite possibly not bother their heads at all about the resolutions of conferences of Prime Ministers of the Empire. Nor is it improbable that tens of thousands of the people in Australia, who are at the present time torn with concern lest the English cricketers at Kennington Qval may win their first test match after nine successive failures, may dismiss from their minds -as a matter to be settled only by their politicians, the question whether the southern dominions should, if need be, make sacrifices with the object of maintaining a powerful naval fleet in the Pacific Ocean. This may not point to a state of things that can be regarded as wholly desirable. It would be impossible to argue that it does. But it is imposr sible to deny, also, that through the agency of sport a community of interest and a spirit of kinship are created and fostered among the peoples of the different countries under the British flag that are invaluable instruments in the welding of the chains of Empire. An increased knowledge of the sister dominions and the formation of friendships between the inhabitants of the widelyscattered portions of the British Commonwealth of Nations are clearly of importance in the sense that they contribute, not less surely because it may be imperceptibly, to the promotion of an understanding, better than would otherwise be possible, of the conditions and problems of the various dominions. And as long as the sport, which serves jto bridge the seas, is i healthy and clean and as long as the rivalry between the competing teams is marked by the spirit of true sportsmanship, there is a great deal to be commended in ft. By the majority of British people, at least, it will not be disapproved. Wherever the abode of British people may temporarily be fixed, there they carry their games with them. British garrisons have introduced cricket to Eastern countries; among the bouldere and on the hard clay of a Northern Ontario goldmining district British engineers obtain their recreation in golf on what must bo the most heart-breaking links in the world; and behind the lines, upon ground pitted with shell-holes, amid the roar of artillery and the shrieking of projectiles, in games of football British soldiers forgot their cares in what must in many cases have been their last hours of life. The peculiar trait in' the national character which manifests itself in devotion to sport may defy analysis. The existence of it is, however, undeniable. And it is a significant circumstance that sport is becoming internationalised. Japan, France, and Denmark, among other nations, entered teams this year for the Davis Cup competition in lawn tennis. Rugby football has been acclimatised in France, and the names of the majority of the South African footballers who are now the guests of the New Zealand Eugby Union plainly indicate their Dutch parentage.' To what extent the influence' of sport may avail in the extension of international amity it would be rash to predict. But it is a hopeful as well as a significant circumstance that the love of athletic games, which were formerly played only by English-speaking people, is spreading to foreign nations. It is essential to the maintenance of an Imperial sport that there shall be a code of rules, accepted throughout the Empire and interpreted as uniformly as possible, under which that sport shall be played. This condition is adequately fulfilled in the case of nearly every sport. It is so in lawn tennis, the rules of which are few and simple. It is so, also, in golf, the rules of which are many and complicated. It is so, again, in cricket, although modifications, as for example in respect of the number of balls that constitute an over, are permitted where they are. considered desirable. Unfortunately, in the case of Eugby football, the rules are construed differently in different parts of the Empire. The visit of the " All Black" team to the United Kingdom in 1905 revealed an important difference between the interpretation given to one rule at Home and that placed upon it in New Zealand. Varying interpretations of other rules have been disclosed when teams from different parts of the Empire have met since that time. It is apparent that the South Africans now visiting this dominion read some of the rules in a sense which is not in accord with the construction that is placed upon them by the local authorities. The lack of uniformity in the interpretation of miles is serious enough. More serious, however, is the tendency exhibited in certain places to introduce innovations tho adoption of which must have the effect of creating sets of rules of strictly limited application. The principle that football shall be an Imperial game in something of the sense in which cricket is an Imperial game is < one that surely merits support. It : cannot survive, however, if success at-

tends local efforts to amend the rules, with the declared object of improving the game, and of making it faster and more spectacular, though the test match on Saturday afternoon showed that play ! under the existing rules may be as fast and spectacular as, we imagine, must satisfy most of the lovers of football. Rugby football can never assume the Imperial character which cricket possesses. If, however, it is to remain, as it is now, a game in which England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, the dominions in South Africa, New South Wales, New Zealand, and British Columbia may meet in honest rivalry, this can only be through the preservation of a set of rules common to all these countries. There are already four different codes under which football may be played—exclusive of that indigenous to the United States —and the tendency towards the adoption of modifications in the rules that may be productive of yet another code is to be deprecated for the reason that it threatens the possibility of a localisation of particular styles of play. There may be, and probably is, good reason why the supreme control of Rugby football should bs democratised so that the dominions, which now provide the best exponents of they game, may be more effectively represented and that their views may receive more adequate consideration than in the past. If so, it is in the direction of securing reform of the executive body of the game that the efforts for improvement should go.