CLERIC’S CRITICISM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 209, 4 August 1937, Page 2

CLERIC’S CRITICISM.

THE SOUTHLAND INVASION. Per Press Association. DUNEDIN, Aug. 3. The opinion that the Southland invasion was nothing more or less than a drunken orgy was expressed by Rev. J. D. Smith at a meeting of the Dunedin Presbytery to-night. Jt was decided, on the recommendation of the Public Questions Committee, to approach both the Otago and Smithland Rugby Unions and the Railway Department with the object of securing their co-oneration in discouraging occurrences of a similar kind m future. “T attended a big inter-Ptate cricket match in Australia,” said Rev. T. Miller “There were hundreds of bottles lving about but they were all lemonade bottles. It is strange that we should have to come to Presbyterian Dunedin to find such a regrettable state ;) Ot affairs as prevailed last Saturday. The Otago Pailv Times, in an editorial on the Ranfurly Shield match, says: “The huge attendance at Cansbrook was, in the main, orderly and well behaved, but it is questionable whether the elevation of sport to such a position as first-class Rugby foothall has come to occu’— in the public mind is desirable. Organised interest on such a scale as was witnessed on this occasion and as on similar occasions in the past is almost certain to lead to excesses on the part of less responsible elements.

“It is not an edifying thing to see whole groups of visitors under the influence of liquor. It is a distressing and disturbing thing to see young men in particular making a football match an excuse for unsecmlv license and public parade of folly. Interest in sport cannot be wholesome when it thus expresses itself. The game provided a manly spectacle, hut reflected in street conduct there were aspects of the gathering attracted bv the match that did not suggest manliness so much as an indifferent sense of moral responsibility in the country’s voutli.”