The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 1934. BITTERNESS IN CRICKET.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20391, 23 August 1934, Page 8

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 1934. BITTERNESS IN CRICKET.

L' VERY NOW and again some journalist turns moralist to deride the seriousness with which the public regard the spin of a coin in cricket, or to offer a cold douche to the .simple enthusiasm with which they hang upon the fate of sporting nations. These moralists, however, are well advised if they time their run, as the writer in the “ News Chronicle ” has done, for the moment when the fever of enthusiasm lias run its course, or a sporting disaster suggests a little comforting philosophy as a national sedative. The fact is that there is no better tonic for the public of two nations than an interest in their representatives on the field of sport. Life, indeed, would be a very dull thing without the recurrence of these struggles between the picked men of nations. Bitterness does creep in when nations are at fever heat over the result of a series, but it creeps in only when there is some manifestation of bad sportsmanship in the conduct of the games—it may be in the footfaidting of a man like Crawford, when the fate of the world’s tennis championship hangs on the stroke he is playing, or it may be in the introduction of bodyline bowling, the most unsporting innovation that cricket has known. There is welcome evidence of this truth in the unanimous assurances that have been received from Australia regarding the friendly spirit that has actuated Australian and New Zealand Rugby te£ims—and Rugby is a game in which tempers are easily frayed. When cricket is played in this good spirit the croakers will be silenced. Meanwhile, their activities may be traced to the fact that bodyline bowling has not been exorcised, even in English county cricket, and never wall be until it has been outlawed.

COMMON-SENSE IN LAW

Y 3 Y LEGALISING Sunday flying for commercial flights, Parliament takes the common-sense course of placing aeroplanes on the same footing as taxi-cabs in respect to an uncertain law, under which some pilots have been fined and others acquitted. New Zealand ought to' have more forthright legislation like this, which recalls the Air Navigation Act of 1920 in Britain. This was a notable instance in which Parliament did its duty in providing law before the parties affected by new' circumstances were compelled to pay lawyers and law courts to expound it for them. The coming of civilian flying raised many problems about the rights and liabilities of aviators towards private persons over whose lands they flew. The general law, defined in the days before man had conquered the sky, was that the surface boundary of the land carried with it the right to the air above up to the sky, and also to the soil to the centre of the earth. The House of Commons, anticipating a long series of actions, simply provided that no action should lie for trespass or nuisance “by reason only of the flight of aircraft over any property.” The simplicity of this enactment, and of the one now before the New Zealand Parliament, which, by the way, pre\ ents any company from contracting itself out of accident insurance, shows how simply Parliament can give an unequivocal decision on any matter if it sets its mind to it.

A BETTER TIMES BUDGET.

' i 'AXATION has been heavy enough in New Zealand to ensure the public against any unpleasant surprises in that quarter, and expectations of revenue have been so far exceeded as to confirm the belief that lower taxes would have '’expedited recovery. Forecasts of the Budget that is to be presented to-night suggest substantial remissions in the unemployment tax and the restoration of the 5 per cent cut to public servants. These proposals are not only good politics but good economics, for a reduction of taxation at the earliest moment is not only a sign but a guarantee of better times.