SPORTSMANSHIP

Southland Times, Issue 19460, 27 January 1925, Page 5

SPORTSMANSHIP

THE PRINCE’S APPEAL IDEALS OF BRITISH RACE. HELP FOR EX-SERVICEMEN. (Special to the Times.) WELLINGTON, January 26. The Minister of Defence (Sir Heatoa Rhodes), has received a complimentary advance copy of a gramophone record of an address on “Sportsmanship” delivered by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. The British gramophone Company have notified that the proceeds of the sale of the record shall be devoted towards Field-Marshal Earl Haig’s fund for ex-service men. 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 Bands selections, including regimental marches and male quar tet, and the singing of “God Bless the Prince of Wales.” “In speaking of the character of a nation composed as the British nation is,” said the Price, “it is impossible to define 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 he can understand the meaning of the word. Nor is the ideal of the understanding of it only confined 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. It makes us hard fighters, but good losers. It leads 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 our ability to tolerate and allow the widest 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 distinction of class, all difference of education, occupation or opportunity. It forms to-day that which welds each unit in our world-wide Empire. 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 the independants throughout the Empire. Those exservice men proved their ‘sportsmanship’ in the best and truest sense of the word. To-day, they are asking us, as 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 they 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.”