The Star. MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 1928. NOTES OF THE DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18545, 20 August 1928, Page 8

The Star. MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 1928. NOTES OF THE DAY.

A UCKLAND, tlie West Coast and Dunedin have had very unedifying exhibitions of League Rugby as tlie English visitors seem to play it, and it is opportune to suggest that the managers of the team should confer with the controlling authorities in New Zealand in a determination to put an end to the unseemly, incidents.that have marred the team’s tour. One cannot, in strict fairness, lay all the blame on the visitors, for after all it takes two to make a quarrel, even on the football field, and it is sometimes difficult to detect the aggressor. We rather fancy that the management of the game lias been habitually lax. The behaviour of tlie “ disloyalists ” who went Home with the New Zealand team ought to have been checked by a firmer display of authority, and drastic discipline is tlie only thing that will cure the present distemper. PARED with the two previous Rugby tests in South Africa, the third lest was remarkable for tlie absence of field goals or penalty goals. Breaches in the opposing defence were made only by means of orthodox methods—tries scored either as the result of forward pressure or as the result of penetrating rearguard action. Another feature was the tendency throughout to keep the game open. The Springbok stranglehold so extensively boomed before the first and second .tests was evidently not successfully epi played for any large portion of the match, and, in consequence, the big crow'd was treated to a thrilling and brilliant exhibition of Rugby. Under these circumstances, the South Africans are entitled to the heartiest of congratulations from all quarters. Abandoning the traditional Springbok methods, they have put the AH Blacks “ one down ” as far as the rubber is concerned, and we can expect them to join issue in the fourth test with redoubled confidence. The New Zealanders, too, will take tlie field with all the determination that carried the day On July 21 in the second test. We should not be at all surprised if the 1928 tour ends as the 1921 tour of the Dominion ended, with honours easy. r | V HE WORD “ ALLEGED ”is being over-worked in connection with the storm aroused in Honolulu about flappers and their habits. A Mrs Robertson, one of the delegates, seems to have been doing some Press work as a sideline, but has fallen foul of Dr Mildred Stanley, of New Zealand, on a point of accurate reporting. Whatever Dr Stanley may have said about flappers, she was entitled to believe that it would not be reported, because the session at Which she spoke was closed to the Press. It is quite possible that people will speak more freely in camera than in open, but they are at least entitled to know under what circumstances they are speaking. Ibis occurrence, according to Honolulu reports, illustrates the folly of barring the sessions to the general Press. If the sessions were open, and anybody were misreported, it would be possible to put a check on the inaccuracy; but if other than journalists attempt to report sittings that are closed to the Press there is bound to be trouble. In the circumstances disclosed from Honolulu, one is forced to accept Dr Stanley’s denials, but the whole incident is unsatisfactory, and may lead not only to a limitation of tlie matter that may be published relating to sittings in camera, but also to a widening of the Press privileges in connection with tlie conference. T ONDON’S VULNERABILITY to air attack has been proved, according to experts, by the recent air manoeuvres, because enough bombers penetrated the air defences to lay half the city in ruins and to “ gas,” maybe, more than half of its inhabitants. So serious has been the lesson of the manoeuvres that it is now suggested that dugouts should be devised in West-end squares, and that civilians in wartime should carry gas helmets. The evidence suggests, indeed, that the most serious aspect of warfare in the future will be its ruthlessncss, which will be absolutely general, the only method of defence being a counter attack on vulnerable enemy cities. If this is so, Britain must build aircraft and develop air services rather than build warships, however necessary warships may be. We have not much information about the military and naval air services of other countries, but they are reputedly efficient and ready to pick up anything that Britain can show them. For instance, the air pageant at Hendon annually has always had a special attraction for the airmen of other countries, who have exhibited the closest interest not only in the engineering but in the flying aspects of the pageant. The British air services are supposed to be efficient though small. In civil aviation, however, other countries have far outstripped Britain, and the British people as a whole, including those of the Dominions, have been very slow to realise the importance of flying. This aspect of the matter must be brought prominently forward as a result of the air manoeuvres. Britain has more to lose than any other country by weak air defences. Germany realised this in her attempts to bomb London with Zeppeljns. Under the new conditions of air and gas warfare to-day, it is likely that an entirely different history would have to be written of air attacks on London, and it is not difficult to appreciate the uneasiness that must be felt at the publication of tlie results of tlie air manoeuvres.