THE GAMBLING EVIL.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 89, 16 April 1927, Page 10

THE GAMBLING EVIL.

EXTRAORDINARY ECONOMIC WASTE. NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS DECAYED. ADDRESS AT CHURCH CONFERENCE The opinion that gambling tends to decay in national consciousness and good • will, and saps the foundations of our industrial and civil life, was expressed by Mr. Howard Earl, of Christchurch, in the course of an address delivered to the - annual conference of Associated Churches of Christ. '■ The speaker prefaced his remarks bv ] stating that the lure of gambling had captured the people of the world. In i Australia something like £200,000,000 j per annum was used in this direction. In twenty years, investments on the j totalisator in New Zealand had in- i creased from £500,000 to £8,000,000, 1 while in England the amount wagered s was estimated from £200,000,000 to i £500,000,000 a year. "The folly of gambling is apparent to t all who have eyes to see," added Mr. c Earl. "The greatest mistake one can < make is to think he can win more money t ™ ? ambli «g than he can earn by decent woik. If you know one person who has won more money than he has lost at gambling then I know thousands who have lost more than they have won and everything they had to lose." , Continuing, the speaker said that every Christian man and ™ tn *J take up the attitude that gaSmg" " one of the most serious problems of the day, and was responsible for far more crime than any other p ast i me; and J™ economic waste involved was extraordi- ' nary. The j thing was wrong from beein- 1 ning to end. First it tended to cut awav i from the foundation of their religion . and unduly emphasise the notion that people were left to blind chance. The I more they knew, however, the more they were removed from the dominance of I chance. Man was not the blind sport | of unordered forces. Again, gambling tended to make an individual less than a man. It produced cunning an d collousness rather than capacity, ft also tends to destroy all sport One, he could go on and add to the sad lapses and economic waste as a result of eamblinc. Every nation has seen the danger and had made laws to counteract th "A e 'cnristian conscience will manifest itself in man ways," he concluded. "Education will be earned out Folk will be educated to regard filing not Z an innocent amusement but as a -r-.-., «.vil Wholehearted opposition TeverV enterprise for the spread of the to every ' f ug _ Sacrificial social Sl£ tSTi -gaged in I call on all service WJ " wo rds to think upon *£ sasi IP lead to right action. -*