The Olympic Games and the Duke of Westminster's Appeal

THE OLYMPIC GA 11IES. 29 has also issued a statement of how it proposes to allocate about £50,000 of the £100,000 asked for. It is obvious to any one who looks at it that the indi– vidual items of expenditure enumerated in that statement can be only a portion, the skeleton as it were, of the general scheme. It is known that the committee sees t hat it will have difficulty in spending less than £60,000, quite apart from the actual trans– portation of our 500 men to and from Berlin and the care of them when there. ROWING MEN AND THE AlIATEUR SPffilT. "vVhat is it, then, in the committee's scheme that is~criticized? There are certain sports which we in Great Britain consider peculiarly our own, and at which at Stockholm we showed ourselves invincible. They are the sports which we habitually practise on a large scale. Conspicuous among them is rowing. Why are we so nearly supreme in rowing ? Simply because in that one sport more than in any other we do, in fact, subject otu-selves to discipline and training as other nations do in other sports. If our teams to compete in other events at Stockholm had bet>n trained and coached as wero the Leander and New College eights, there would have been another tale to tell. It seems particularly ungracious for any rowing man to oppose the proposed large schemes of training, for if he was an Oxford or Cambridge oar he is the one man who received in the highest degree all those advantages of which it is now desired t o extend some part to athletes in other lines. If anything which is now proposed would make ' pro– fessionals' of our amateurs, then must every Univer– sity oar be 50 times professional. It cannot be hoped to give to our swi1mners, our bicyclists, our runners and jumpers, and other athletes all over the country, anything like the care and lavish facilities which the Universities and individual colleges, throu~h the boat clubs, give to all their men, but it is desrred to put within the reach of hundreds of t housands of others– potentially just as good amateurs in spirit as any man at the University-the opportunity, if they be good enough, of getting some share in t he same sort of facilities. WHAT IT IS HOPED TO Do. " Of the 500 British representat,ives at Berlin at least 450 will have to be drawn from among non– University men. Probably upwards of 400 will not have been to a great public school. How can any University man, remembering what he has himself eujoyed, say that these men must not have a track put at their disposal, the implements of their parti– cular game wherewith to practise, or expert advice to help them in their training ? And if there is to be some such genera.I extension of the facilities for practice and for training, must it not be to the benefit of the physique of the nation ? How are we going to ensure that they-this mass of non– University men-will have the right doctrine preached to them and the true sporting spirit instilloo, better than by having the whole matter under the oversight of such gentlemen as compose Mr. Studd's Specia l Committee 1 "The object of this article, however, is not to pre– cipitate controversy on incidental matters, but to point out how much common ground there is, and to focus attention on essentials. Putting aside all futile talk about degrading spo,·t, when we are all equally intent on upholding it and dignifying it, what actually confronts us is that we have to compete at Berlin and must make some kind of preparation for it. It is intelligible that, in people who have come only recently in accidental cont.act with the aubject, a personal distaste for the Games should rnake it cli.fficult to descend to the discussing of details. Have they then any other general scheme than t hat which the committee proposes ? 'Will they consult with the committee and help it ? Are there pa.rt icular features of the proposed plan itself with which they disagree ? Is there any way in which the end desired can be attained without spending money or so much money ? Any suggestion. of an economy which has been overlooked by the committee would surely be most irrr. tefully welcomed. But if we are generally agreed as to nine.tenths of t he matter, and if the careful ly-matured proposals of the committee hold the field alone, the one thing needful is to pull together and give prOmJ?t and i;enerous support to the Duke of \Ve~trnmster's fund." AFTER 1916. On the question whether we should continue to compete at the Games a/ter those at Berlin in 1916, Mr. J. E. K. Studd wrote to The Times, in a letter published on October 15, as follows :- 1\fr. Frederic Harrison su"'gests that the Special Committee would do well to announce that Great Britain would take no pa.rt in the Olympic Games after 1016. May I point out t hat the Special Com– mittee have no power to mako any such announce· ment ? They iire appointed solely for the Berlin Ge.mos and will cease to exist as soon as those Ge.mes are over. The decision of cont.inuing or not continuing rests not with the Special Committee, but with the British Olympic Council, which is composed of representatives of the Sports Governing Bodies. Speaking for myself a lone, one of the reasons that induced me to accept t he position of chairman of the Specie.I Committee was the hope that if suc– cessful the work of that committee would enable Great Britain to retire from futw·e Olympic contests without loss of dignity or prestige should she desire t o do so. As has been said above, however, the immediate question is not what we shall do after Berlin, but how we are to make a worthy appearance there. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF " STANDING DOWN " IN 1916. The case was succinctly put by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a short letter to The Times (Sep– tember-13)-:- I should like to ask one qu~tion and receive a definite reply from all those persons, including Mr. Punch, who are makinit ou-r Olympic task m r-re diffi– cult. It is this : -" Are you prepared to stand down from the Berlin Games altogether ? " In answering it they would do well to bear three points in mind– that we were defeated at the last Games, that the Ge.mes a.re in Berlin, and that a.II the chief nations have already announced their intention of seriously competing. If in the face of this they are prepared to stand down, then their attitude is, I admit, _per– fectly consistent. If they are not, then what IS it that they want to do ? We are, of course, not going to "stand down." British athletes are certainly going to enter and compete at the Berlin Game.a, and ultimately it is not possible to doubt that the money will be forthcoming to enable them to compete in such a way as to do some credit to us. But those who,