SOME SOCIAL QUESTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 228, 1 October 1897, Page 2

SOME SOCIAL QUESTIONS.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—ln your issue of the 27th, under the heading of " Parliamentary Gossip," an amendment to the Gaming and Lotteries Act is spoken of as follows: —" This Bill will almost certainly meet the fate of jto predecessors." Now I should like to know what objection there is to a "State tote " and State pawn shops. People vill gamble on races and people must borrow, why not let it be in such a way that the country and not the individual profits thereby. I may possibly be wrong, but am one of those individuals who thinks that tie generality of evils will never be cured ti(l the main evil is eradicated, viz., private ownership of land, and the argument■ of Henry George on that point to" me seen? unanswerable. The land, the sea, and air are each necessary for our exiiitence; w steal the one, and would steal the others too, but we can't! The cure of drink » another great question. Supposing beer, ■wane, etc., were as get-at-able as mw,lß it not within the bounds of reason to suppose (after the first outburst was over owing to the change) that drink general of all kinds being so common it would in a sense become to be ignored in the sain proportion that it is adored at the present time.—l am, etc., InQSIKEB.