ches but a few unimportant ones. I vote for Greater Britain,
as you know: and in any case my best arguments would go down before the
sheer delight of watching him at the wicket. Let the territorial fiction
stand, by all means. Nay, let us value it as the one relic of genuine
county cricket. It is the other side of the business that I quarrel
with."

"Be good enough to define the quarrel."

"Why, then, I quarrel with the spectacular side of the New Cricket; which,
when you come to look into it, is the gate-money side. How does
Ranjitsinhji defend it?"

"Let me see. 'Its justification is the pleasure it provides for large
numbers of the public.'"

"Quite so: the bricklayer and the stockbroker by the ropes, and the
cynical lawyer in the pavilion! But I prefer to consider the interests of
the game."

"'From a purely cricket point of view,' he goes on, 'not much can be said
against it.'"

"Let us inquire into that. The New Cricket is a business concern: it
caters for the bricklayer, the stockbroker, and the whole crowd of
spectators. Its prosperity depends on the attraction it offers them.
To attract them it must provide first-class players, and the county that
cannot breed first-class players is forced to hire them. This is costly;
but again the cash comes out of the spectators' pockets, in subscriptions
and gate-money. Now are you going to tell me that those who pay the piper
will refrain from calling the tune? Most certainly they will not.
More and more frequently in newspaper reports of cricket-matches you find
discussions of what is 'due to the public.' If stumps, for some reason or
other, are drawn early, it is hinted that the spectators have a grievance;
a captain's orders are canvassed and challenged, and so is the choice of
his team; a dispute between a club and its servants becomes an affair of
the streets, and is taken up by the press, with threats and
counter-threats. In short, the interest of the game and the interest of
the crowd may not be identical; and whereas a captain used to consider
only the interest of the game, he is now obliged to consider both.
Does Ranjitsinhji point this out?"

"He seems, at any rate, to admit it; for I find this on page 232, in his
chapter upon 'Captaincy':--

"'The duties of a captain vary somewhat according to the kind of match
in which his side is engaged, and to the kind of club which has
elected him. To begin with, first-class cricket, i