Olympic Games and the Duke of Westminster's appeal for £100,000

THE OLYMPIC GAMES.
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 that 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.
R
OWING
M
EN AND THE
A
MATEUR
S
PIRIT.
" What 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 ourselves to discipline and
training as other nations do in other sports. If
our teams to compete in other events at Stockholm
had been trained and coached as were 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
to 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 swimmers, 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, through the boat
clubs, give to all their men, but it is desired to put
within the reach of hundreds of thousands 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 the same sort
of facilities.
W
HAT IT IS
H
OPED TO
D
O.
" Of the 500 British representatives 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
enjoyed, 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 general 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 instilled, better
than by having the whole matter under the oversight
of such gentlemen as compose Mr. Studd's Special
Committee ?
" 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 sport, 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 contact with the
subject, a personal distaste for the Games should
make it difficult to descend to the discussing of
-
details. Have they then any other general scheme
than that which the committee proposes ? Will
they consult with the committee and help it ? Are
there particular 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 g atefully welcomed.
But if we are generally agreed as to nine-tenths of
the matter, and if the carefully-matured proposals of
the committee hold the field alone, the one thing
needful is to pull together and give prompt and
;enerous support to the Duke of Westminster's
fund."
AFTER 1916.
On the question whether we should continue
to compete at the Games
after
those at Berlin in
1916, Mr. J. E. K. Studd wrote to
The Times,
in a letter published on October 15, as follows :
Mr. Frederic Harrison suggests that the Special
Committee would do well to announce that Great
Britain would take no part in the Olympic Games
after 1916. May I point out that the Special Com-
mittee have no power to make any such announce-
ment ? They are appointed solely for the Berlin
Games and will cease to exist as soon as those Games
are over.
The decision of continuing 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 alone, one of the reasons
that induced me to accept the position of chairman
of the Special Committee was the hope that if suc-
cessful the work of that committee would enable
Great Britain to retire from future Olympic contests-
without loss of dignity or prestige should she desire
to 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.
T
HE
I
MPOSSIBILITY OF "
S
TANDING
D
OWN "
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 que-tion and receive
a definite reply from all those persons, including Mr.
Punch, who are making our Olympic task mare 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
Games
are
in Berlin, and that all 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 andz
compete at the Berlin Games, and ultimately
it is not possible to doubt that the money will be
forthcoming to enable them t& compete in such;
a way as to do some credit to us.. But those who,.