THE DISPUTE WITH MURDOCH'S TEAM.

Otago Witness, Issue 1731, 24 January 1885, Page 21

THE DISPUTE WITH MURDOCH'S TEAM.

The talk about the monetary dispute between' (.he English professionals and tbe last Australian team has not yet subsided. At luncheon, after a match recently played on the Adelaide oval, the Attorney-General, who presided, severely criticised the action of the Australian Eleven with respect to the proposed match, Australia v. England. He said tha the Australians had sacrificed the cricketing honour of the Colonies for monetary considerations. As an old player, and a lover of the game, he protested against cricket being so lowered.

The Melbourne Argus has spoken very plainly on tho subject. It says : — The members of the late Australian Eleven, when they made the now notorious demand for half the gate money at any matches in which they took part, did so on the egotistical supposition that their name and reputation only could secure a big attendance for a match on New Year's Day, when people are offered bo many other means of spending thoir holiday. The most emphatic denial to every absurd statement that has been made by and for these cricketers was given by the cricketing public of Victoria, on the Melbourne cricket ground, at 4 o'clock on fche afternoon of January 1 ; the members of Murdoch's team realise that even a very fine cricketing reputation will soil when dragged through the mire of mon<3y, and the public probably hope that i,he very last has been hoard of tho defunct fourth Australian Eleven.

Tbe writer of cricket gossip in the Leader has, on the other hand, all along taken the side of tha Australians. Tho following extract from the last issue of the Loader will give a good idea of what is to be said on their behalf : — Tho result of the match between the English eleven and a combined team selected by Mr Major has gone far towards proving the correctness of my surmise some weeks ago, that tho English Eleven can beat any team but a thoroughly representative one, and that second-rate elevens would have no chance with thorn in fair competition. The match which was finished on Monday, of course, afforded a fine opening for the vials of vituperation of those who have for twelve months past expended all their enargy in hounding down the fourth Australian Eleven, and each day's play was seized upon as a medium for nncomplimeptary allusion to the recently successful Australian team. With persistent injustice it; has been represented that the members of j Murdoch's eleven have used every endeavour to injure the prospects of the English players, and have endeavoured to extort from them exorbitant terms ; whereas, as the public have at last been made aware, this malicious misrepresentation when fully exposed and properly explained turns out to be a tissue of what is vulgarly termed " piled up agony." The members of the foui'th. Australian Elevon, as I explained last weak, made enemies at the time they formed their team, through refusing to swallow boluses of advice from every Tom, Dick, or Harry who chose to offer it ; and it will surely be admitted by those whoae platform has Ijeen "abuse and plenty of it," that preferring to act upon their own judgment they performed feats at which " all tha world wondered." The result has been the presistent opposition of a section who have used a cloak of friendship for the Engliamen as an excuse for continuing the yelping ohorus of abuse, which is, in its monotonous and meaningless repetition, becoming positively tiresome. Slowly but surely, however, the public have awakened to the fact that their well known boapitable feelings towards strangers have been traded upon, a tender chord was cleverly struck when the people of these colonies were untruthfully led to believe that the Australian Eleven were the would be extortionists, and were trying to take bread out of tha mouths of our visitors, and the facia which have been fearlessly pub lished from time to time in The Leader, despite an avalanche of opposition, have enlightened tho public as to the real state of affairs. Individually thß members of the Australian Eleven who took part in the late intercolonial match received a public welcome from the spectators, the I warmth of which was marked and especially significant, and had the managers of the English team not obstinately refused to budge from their conditions, there is no doubt that the two teams would have met, when, judging from recent occurrences, Murdoch's eleven, as a team, ' would have met with a public welcome which would have silenced the snapping brigade. L9t not anyone suppose that Australian elevens, when playing in England, take half the receipts or anything approaching it. They divide the shillings or sixpences as the case may be, but the stands, which are extensive and still increasing, and bring in from 10a to £1 for a match pur seat, produce revenue only to the home club, in which the visitors do not participate. The fourth Australian Eleven expected no more from the English manager than had been enjoyed by their predecessors, and in fact offered to accept less, and eventually, to refute the accui-ation of money grubbing, proposed to give that lesser proportion to charity ; but it could not be, a feeling against the Australians had bosn stirred up, and it was evidently rcsolvod to work upon it to the bitter end, Mr Con way especially complains that his offer to submit to arbitration was refused ; now if he offered 30 per cent, and refused to give 40, there seems to be little room for the intervention of arbitrators, especially as in making their offer the Australians, who would certainly have been the chief attraction, had already agreed to accept 10 per C9nt. less than they had s, right to expect. The public need not believe or be troubled by the rubbish that is talked of our bad behaviour to our visitors, on the contrary I think it is the Australian team who have learnt the grim truth of the saying that a prophet has no honour in his own country. No fear of the English professionals finding fault "with Australia, where they are treated by all classes of society as men and equals, while they know how miserably their treatment at home,compares to that which they meet with in our bright southern home. In the old country rigid conventionality (which forces the professionals to sit in a separate enclosure like animals of »n inferior pen; which insists that they must eat by themselves ; which drives them out at a gate specially set apart, that they shall not contaminate superior humanity ; which positively insists on their being shorn of their baptismal names to distinguish De Montmorenoy Jones, Esq., from Brown the bowlar; which compels fine respectful use of the word "Sir" to a follow batsman with a wealthy father, surrounds the profesoional crifketer with a something stroDgly akin to serfdom, and which must entor like irou into the soul of such manly fellows as we know most English professional cricketers to be when allowed to indulge thoir natural tastes and impulses. In pity's name let us hear no more of the nonsense that has been talked ; the enemies of tbe fourth Australian Eleven should be satisfied that their Datarioiw scheming has prevented Murdoch's team appearing on the Melbourne) ground ag a team after thoir magaificoa!/ EseUeb pwEcssnaucQs, aM surety tfcep

could have wished no more than that ; whilst, on tho other band, the Australians may rest satisfied that a revulsion of feeling on tha part of the public has taken place, and their popularity been completely re - established. Tbe general public have bean enabled 'to Bee through the contemptible way in which their higher feelings have been played with and worked upon, the result being that the contempt which it was hoped they would ba induced to feel for the Australians, is now levelled at those who have tried to throw dust in their eyes.