The Cruise of the Branwen

THE OLYMPIC GAMES a somewhat unfair handicap against our men that they should be the only team who are not assisted to produce their best representatives by the smallest subsidy from their own Govern– ment. If it had not been for the exertions of the Rev. R. S. de Courcy Laffan, and the British Olympic Council, with its president, Lord Desborough, British athletes would not have got even what little help they had. By the Council's assistance a fund was distributed to the various responsible associations, which was made up of £80 from the Greek (not the English) Government, £50 from the Goldsmiths' Company, and £10 each from the Grocers, Salters, and Clothworkers, whose generosity had hardly been sufficiently recog– nised by the public. There is no reason why the Council should not eventually become a kind of International Board which will take the lead in international sport as the Jockey Club now takes the lead in horse– racing. But the Council had no power to organise the English athletes at Athens. It was originally constituted to spread in Great Britain a knowledge of the Olympic movement started by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1896, and to secure that the views of our British associations should have their due weight in the organisation of the series of Olympic Games which began in Athens (1896), continued in Paris (1900), and St. Louis (1904-), and are being held in London in 1908. The Greek Games of 1906 were an 96