"TOTE" PERMITS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 119, 20 May 1912, Page 8

"TOTE" PERMITS

WILL MORE BE ISSUED? PAHIATUA CLUB'S POSITION. I ENCOURAGEMENT OF HUNT CLUBS Representatives of the Pahiatua Racing Club waited on the Minister of Internal | Affairs (the Hon. G. W. Russel}) to-day and urged the claims of the club to again I be granted a totalisator permit, contending that an injustice had been done by removing it from the list of licensed clubs by the operation of the Gaming Amendment Act. The deputation pointed out that the club had spent £3398 on the course, and its liabilities at present amounted to £1900. The club claimed that its racing had always been conducted on straight lines, and that the club had a just claim to be reinstated. During the past four years, it was added, £1100 had been given yearly in stakes, and the course was one of the best in the North Island. The Racing Commission spent only about a quarter of an hour on the course, and the officials had no opportunity cf putting the position before them. The Minister, in replying, said he could not give a definite answer that day, but he hoped before long to give the views of the Government on the subject. The effect of the report of the Racing Conunbsion had effect until 31st July, and he was not issuing permits beyond that date. This matter had to come before Cabinet in order that Cabinet might lay down, a line of policy in connection with what was to be done in connection with totalisator permits. He would bring the matter at once before Cabinet in order that a decision might be com© to, and he would give them this assurance that if Cabinet determined that the matter waslo be reopened — that was to say, if the resolutions of the 'Racing Commission's xeport was not to be continued beyond the one year — he would take the case of Pahiatua into his special consideration, because it appeared to- him that Pahiatua represented a type of case that had certainly been overlooked by the Racing Commission in the report that it brought down. While he was not prepared to encourage the wholesale support of mushroom meetings, yeb h& felt that the legislation of the country should not stand in the way of the people in a district like Paiiiatua having one or two days' racing in a year. The Miniqter added that he had sent on to Cabinet a recommendation that hunt clubs should receive, special consideration from the 'State — , if not bj the issue of totalisator permite, then by some special encouragement through the Agricultural Department, in order to foster the breeding of weight -carriers and the class of horses that figured at hunt meetings, as compared with those that figured in shortdistance races. If ever there was an emergency and the Old Country was engaged in war, and the Dominion was called upon to furnish five or ten thousand weight-carriers, the supply would moat likely be obtained from such bodies as hunt clubs, and he was anxious to in every reasonable way encourage such forma of enterprise. (Applause.)