The N. Z. Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY). FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1906. THE VICTORS’ RETURN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 5843, 9 March 1906, Page 4

The N. Z. Times.

(PUBLISHED DAILY). FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1906. THE VICTORS’ RETURN.

BTTH VmCH IS INCORPORATED THE “WBXXUSQTOK

Peace hath its victories. Yesterday evening the people of Wellington acclaimed tho return of our triumphant sons. Tills afternoon tho city herself will accord to the football conquerors the meed they have so ably won, so modestly sustained. There is no need hero to apologiso for the predominance that sport has achieved in our national life. The men whom we are welcoming to-day are no hired gladiators, but amateurs playing tho game for the game’s sake. It is professionalism in sport that is tho hano of modern civilisation; and tho wonderful record of our team in the Old Country points the moral. Without detracting in any way from our representatives’ success, it must be apparent that had tho professional element not crept into English football, we would have had a larger and more difficult field fo beat. Our team’s tour is a triumph for the purity of our football.

But tho victory we acclaim is not one of points scored, of rival teams beaten; it is a victory' of character. Had our representatives merely beaten certain dubs in a far-country, that .would have been matter for honest congratulation and pride. It may bo an easy thing, in a nation that plays its games with the same strcnuouEness as it fells its forests ■and builds its cities, to produce, a type of men physically more capable and mentally more alert than tho natives of an older and less enthusiastic community. But it is a more difficult thing to produce a typo of manhood that can bear itself in the difficult and often fatal hour of victory with the dignity and restraint that have long been thought to bo tho peculiar trait of the modem . Englishman. Success, overwhelming success, is the hardest thing a young man, or a young nation, can be called upon to boar; and wo may justly bo proud that in our hour of triumph, equally as on the football field, our representatives have quitted themselves ■like men.

The High Commissioner, in his letter to the Premier, confirmed this victory of character, which is a greater victory than to have beaten tho Welsh. “ The extraordinary interest taken by the British public in the tour,” he says, " and tho blazo of popular attention and excitement amid which the New Zealand athletes lived for more than throe months, were such as might have turned the heads of older and more experienced men. Our players were, however, conspicuous from first to last hy a quiet and modest demeanour. From first to last, also, they submitted to tho discipline and self-denial necessary to enable them to remain, in good playing trim.

.... It is -with genuine pleasure that I am able to bear testimony to the manner in which they have upheld the good name of New Zealand in the Mother Country—not only as athletes, but as sportsmen and gentlemen.” So it is not the mere scorers of certain points upon a football field that Wellington will this afternoon acclaim, but - the vindicators cf our national character who have proved that here, despite the carping of occasional critics, wo have evolved, in a ciiliienlt and alien environment, a typo that Ims already learnt the finest lesson o: civilisation—the need for modesty, selfdenial, disciphne. It is to these qualities, an exemplified by the men that yesterday arrived from tho North, that wa accord our recognition and our welcome. These men wore chosen because of tho ability with which they played a gama; they have proved'that they can

play tho ” game. They loft our shores as athletes; they have shown themselves, equally in the dignity with which they horn their overwhelming success and in tho manliness with which they without excuse accepted their one defeat, ■‘sportsmen and gentlemen.”