LAW AGAINST GAMBLING.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 69, 22 March 1928, Page 6

LAW AGAINST GAMBLING.

I note that the School Committees' Association of Christchurch is desirous of having the convictions registered against its members for carrying on progressive euchre tournaments removed from the records. Their indignation is very natural, hut their view is equally narrow. The whole Gaming Act requires revising to bring it into accord with British fair play and legal practice. As a matter of fact, it "is doubtful if any statute under the British flag is treated with greater contempt. It is broken daily by thousands and the few prosecutions are kept well away from juries, who, experience teaches, will not do violence to their manhood by convicting under what they consider to be an unjust and tyrannical law. A man has no longer any right to do what he likes with his own time and money. The freedom of our fathers, the boast of the Britisher, no longer exists. The Prussian slogan, "It is forbidden," seems written everywhere. The Russian method of sending secret police to induce people to break the law so that they can be prosecuted disgusts the British conscience. Adopting the French method of putting the onus of proof on the accused ia utterly opposed to our sense of fair plav. The real truth is we are an oppressed people, frightened, sad-faced and docile, waiting patiently for some strong character to raise tho flag of freedom again. May he soon arise. FREEDOM.