FOOTBALL AND DEFENCE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144082, 29 April 1913, Page 7

FOOTBALL AND DEFENCE.

“Is too much attention given to sport?” is a question that has been raised more than once in New Zealand. The subject is also engaging the attention of leaders of xniblic opinion in England. Our cablegrams recently informed us that a London newspaper in commenting on the disinclination of so many young men to take part in, the defence of their country' had bewailed the fact that ‘ ‘the men in this country prefer to shout at football matches, eat sweets, and sit in,picture palaces.” Major-General Bethune, Director-Gen-eral of the Territorials, in a speech last month, whilst not altogether endorsing this sweeping indictment, made some remarks upon the same question. He said: —“The apathy in getting men to join the Territorial Army is because thqy think there is no necessity for it. You can take it from me that there is necessity for it. We do want men. But I would like to have men come voluntarily, and not otherwise. To get them we have to rouse a spirit in the country which does not exist at present. England a verile, manly race, has turned its attention to games and sport as an outlet for its energy ; we have come to look upon sport as an end in itself rather than as a relaxation. Ido not agree with the nonsense talked about people playing and doing nothing else, but I think we have got a class in the Territorial Army, which under present conditions, ought not to be in the Army. We get casual labourers—men who earn from 15s to £1 a week—joining the territorials and doing the work, while the officers are mostly hard-worked men, with the exception of a few regiments which are officered by country gentlemen, and worked by yoemen farmers. It is generally the hard-worked classes that are comparatively poorly paid, and they really need their money for family' requirements. I have every sympathy with sport, but I want to say to the heads of the football world that they have in their hands the flower of the country, and I do not want people to say ‘there are fellows who do nothing but football.’ ”