The Olympic Games and the Duke of Westminster's Appeal

28 THE OLYMPIC GkMES. the public t o furnish it, and that they did the best ·they could under the circumstances. CAN WE WITHDRAW FROM THE GA~IES? " So far, it is hoped, we are still on common ground. Now emerges the question of what to do in the situation which confronts us. There are pie.inly t he usual three courses. We can withdraw from the Ga.mes altogether. ·vve can compete as we did last -time. We can take the thing more seriously, and by proper organization do our best to make a. better showing at Berlin. We may push aside for the moment, for the sake of agreement, the fourth possible choice-namely, of competing at Berlin with a pre-announced intention of withdrawing afterwards. ·· Let us leave our conduct after 1916 for later discussion. The immediate question is, What -are we going to do about Berlin ? " The present writer does not believe that among those who have faced the facts there is really any disagreement about this. In the first place, we simply cannot withdraw now. There can be no two opinions as to the interpretation which would be put upon such a. withdrawal by other cow1tries. We should be generally regarded as having with– drawn after defeat in a fit of sulks. And the trouble is that this would be true. V/hatever we may say to comfort ourselves about the demora.lizir.g charac– ter of the Games, the fact remains that if we had repeated at Stockholm our success of 1908 nothing, or nothing serious, would have been heard about not competing in 1916. We know in our hearts that that is true. ·we should have ambled along-still not ea.ring much-and have gone to Berlin in the same random way a.s we went to Stockholm. " Have those, if still there are any, who think that we should now withdraw considered how rude it would be to Germany ? Have they thought how contemptuously it would be received by our own .self-governing Dominions, by Australia., South Africa., and Canada, who a.re all intending to compete ? Perhaps even more cogent is the argument that withdrawal is literally impossible. If the nation gave our athletes no support they would compete at Berlin just the same. This is a fact which those who a.re out of touch with our amateur athletic organizations do not take into account. British athletes are going to Berlin. The only question is whether they shall be left to go unorga.nized and once more in deplorable contrB!lt with the repre– sentatives of other countries, or whether they shall go decently and in such a way as to have some chance of reflecting at lea.'!t no discredit on Great Britain. HALF-BBABTED COMPETITION. "It is in fact only a question of how we shall com· pete, not of whether we shall compete or not. But no one who we.a at Stockholm can _possibly desire to - a repetition of what occurred there. No one who :we.a not at Stockholm, if he understood, could poaaibly desire to know that the things which hap– pened there ·were being repeated, even though he might not be there to -~- Apart from the dis– courtelly of our entering against other nations, and at the ll&Dle time saying to them, ' We are not really ~. you know ; we could do much better if we 4icln't think the Games rather a poor thing,' apart from the absurd ill-manners of such a course, 1t is not~t to think of letting the impression of our ;ree which was created at Stockholm · , by a limilar display at Berlin, into active and oonftrmed oontempt for us. · " So atrong and~y universal was the feeling in EnaJand that this could not be tolerated, in the ~ lmmediately 111looeeding the Stockholm Games, that, as the immediate result of correspondence which then appeared in The T imes, certain gentlemen entered into collaboration with the British Olympic Council, o.nd as a result of theii· joint labours, which are believed to have been considerable, ther~ was constituted the new Olympic Specie.I Committee. The objects for which this committee was organized were to investigate and find out what steps would be needed to enable Great Britain to make a worthy showing at Berlin, and what would be the expense of carrying out those steps. An appeal wo.s then to be made to the public to furnish the necessary funds, and the committee would see that the funds when furnished were duly applied to the objects for which they were subscribed. THE SPECIAL CmmIITTEE. "Nobody has questioned the entire fitness of the members of the Special Committee for t heir to.sk. Nobody can suspect these gentlemen-Mr. Studd, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, l\Ir. H. "\V. Forster, M.P., Sir Claude MacDonald, Mr. Theodore Cook, o.nd the rest -of having o.ny other than patriotic motives, of being any Jess devoted than any one else to the maintenance of the best traclitions of British sport., or of being likely to do anything but set themselves in a serious o.nd business-like way to the undertaking before them. As a matter of fact, the committee is known to have done a great deal of patient hard work since it was organized last spring. It has obtained sug~estions from all the leading amateur athletic bodies as to what reforms are needed and what is the lowest cost at which they could be carried through. It has analysed all these suggestions and brought its own knowledge, ai; well a.s all the expert advice that it could command, to bear upon them. As a result, guided always by the idea that what was now being done should be made the basis of a general scheme for the better physical training of the youth of the nation, it decided that the public should be asked for £100,000. Having confidence in the judgrnent of the committee and sympathizing with the general objects of the movement, the Duke of ·westminster, Lord Roberts, Lord Grey, .Lord Rothschild, Lord Strathcona., and Lord Harris associated themselves in issuing the public appeal. It is the magnitude of the sum asked for which has precipitated the recent .correspondence. THE APPEAL FOR £100,000. " Is it such a very large sum for the purpose ? Germany at least is spending very much more, prob– ably several times as much. The United States in 191~ s~nt between £30,000 and £40,~00 on merely aking-1ts1I1en to Stockholm asd looking after them while they were there ; and such expenses, onlr. for the last few weeks at Berlin, a.re merely one detail of what the committee has to provide for. Sweden last year is said to have spent £110,000. In at least five other European countries the movement is receiving Government support, and preparations are already actively under way on a national scale and with State encouragement. It is an entirel;Y' f~ analogy to speak of this as if it were a compet1- t1on between two public schools. This is not Eton matching itself against Winchester, but Great Britain matching herself against Germany and America and Sweden and France and all the other nations, not in one event but in a hundred events to~compete in which we must probably put in the field about 500 men. At Stockholm there were 98 events and the United Kingdom ma.de 526 entries. Th; .Special Committee has from time to time published outlinea of what it is proposed to do in the way of preparation in various fira.nches of athletics. ,It