The Press Friday, July 13, 1923. Racing and the Law.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17814, 13 July 1923, Page 8

The Press Friday, July 13, 1923. Racing and the Law.

lu concluding his address to the Easing Conference yesterday Sir George Clifford made the following remarks: — The increasing popularity of racing is proved by tho crowded state of our enclosures, by thr numerical advance in the nominations for future events, and by the eagerness of the people foi better facilities when viewing the contesi.s. ft rests with us to ensure th/it <he sport deserves such popular s'jc'■£sS. Our part is to remove all reproach from it, and (o secure fair pl'iy to all participants in the noblest of pastimes. That the Turf grows in popularity is a fact which suggests vory strongly that opposition to it is opposition to o deeply-iootcd public sentiment, which is on tho wholo sound and wholesome. We need not here, however, discuss the Turf as a public institution: it will be timo enough to do that when, or if, its opponents, for some time quiescent, become active again. A considerable portion of the President-'s address, and a special memorandum attached to it, are concerned with the very heavy burden of taxation under which the sport carries on. It will come as a surprise to many people to learn that racing contributes nearly half a million sterling to the public revenues. This large sum is made up aa follows: Totalisator tax, £137,644; dividend tax, £246,704; tax on stakes, £43,411; tax on receipts, etc., £4680; amusement tax, £15,680; land tax, £2433; income tax, £9520; and local rates amounting to £6253. In this network of taxation certain portions of the income of club 3 aTo taxed three times over, and the general effect of the various imposts is to place on the sport a burden far beyond what can from any point of view be deemed reason- j able. Indeed, it would hardly be over-stating the case to say that the taxation is penal, and there is no excuse for levying penal rates on a legitimate public pastime. The proposals for relief are clearly set out in the memorandum, and embrace: (1) a more liberal and more rational method of assessing income, (2).. the exemption of the sport from amusement tax, (3) the reduction of the dividend tax to the former rate of 2J per cent., (4) the reduction of the tax on stakes to 1 per cent., and (5) the reduction of tho railway charges for the carriage of horses. The loss of revenue that these concessions would cause to the Government could be in part recouped by the adoption of certain proposals which are independently desirable. Tho first of these is the restoration of the public's former liberty to transmit money to the secretaries of clubs for investment upon tho totalisator. This would be a source of revenue to the Government, but, what is more important, it would reduce the volume of business which is done . by the bookmakers. Nobody j benefits from the present embargo upon investments through club secretaries, except the bookmaking tribe. Everyone elso loses —the Government, the clubs, and the betting public. It is astonishing that a prohibition for which nothing whatever can be said should have been maintained so long, and this may also bo said concerning the absurdity of the law which forbids tho newspapers to print the amounts of the dividends paid out. Even, the silliest laws are usually found to have some faint justification in a consideration which once was, and in possible circumstances might again become, valid. But for the two prohibitions referred to there never was, and there never can bo, the faintest shadow of a reason based upon any commonsense idea. The prohibition of the "double" totalisator is an absurdity pure and simple. The proposals in the President's memorandum are so simple and reasonable that even in a j session shorter than usual there should ! bo ample time to pass a Bill translating them into law. ] Peace with Turkey. There can be few happier men in Europe to-day than the leaders of the Young Turks. The peace they have taken home in their pockets is so much better than they expected, and so very many times better than.they deserved, that if they retain still the essentials of the old faith their cry will be: "Come< to prayer! Come to prayer] " There is no God but God 1 And Maho*'met is his prophet!" Por the last six months they have been passively resisting the world, and the world, in most matters, has let) them, have their way. The Allies will evacuate Constantinople, Ohanak and Gallipoli. Capitulations are abolished. Two-thirds of the external debt melts into thin adr. There is no limit, we are told, to the standing army, and even the fleet, such as it is, comes back again. And all as the reward of craft, courage, stubbornness, bluff, in the presence of conquerors too worried to pull together. Yet from the Allied point of view it is a very good peace also. It is good first 1 of all because we most desperately wanted it. The situation in the West of Europe is already so acute' that it would have been disastrous to have had the Turks on our hands indefinitely. But it is a good peace also for the deeper reason that it has in it the elements of permanence. Peace for ever is merely an. abstraction, and no sensible person will regard the Near East as settled now for all tune. But it may perhaps ; be settled for a quite long time, and if it is, the blessings will be felt especially by Britain. We must not be sentimental and suppose that tho Young Turk has put off for ever the eins of his ancestors: what he has done rather is to put off the grosser sins that were for ever getting his ' Deogte into iroubJa, There is wor»

than a suspicion, for example, that one of the achievements of Angora at Lausanne was to sell back to France certain treaty rights and economic concessions which had been sold once already to France in 1914. and in the interval re-appropriated and traded to Admiral Chester. East is still East. But far more vividly than Constantinople ever saw them. Angora is aware of the advantages of peace. Kemal rules over about six million people, and of "these five million are simple peasants, illiterate, but frugal and industrious, and the reconstruction of Turkey depends on the ability of the present leaders to ; ' speed up ; ' these peasants to modern standards, and to make them, in a Western sense, politically self-con-scious. We may call the peace good because it leaves Turkey free of outside interference, and more conscious than she has been for three generations of occupying a "place in the "sun." Nor need the statement be qualified 'because America, Britain and France are all bidding for economio concessions. The effect of those, whoever gets them, will be to put nionoy into the Angora treasury, and roads and railways and factories and mines into the interior of Anatolia, lb will also of course be to take money out—in francs and dollars and pounds, instead of marks —but since even th& Soviets are eager for a similar proof of friendship, the most radical need not be alarmed. Left to itsejf economically as well as politically, the new Turkey might advance as rapidly as to be wondering in 1950 whether to have spoked instead of solid wheels on its bullock-carts. Local Legislation Bill. A brief, minor, but still important Bill has been prepared by the Minister of I Internal Affairs for the better treatment I in future of local legislation. The intention is to provide a method by j which ratepayers and all others interested may have full notice in advance j of the scope and purpose of minor local measures, and members of Parliament a full opportunity afterwards to con- j sider them critically before the House has disposed of them. Everyone ,| knows what happens now: during the session, and especially towards the end of a session, requests are made for tho insertion of this or that clause in that extraordinary measure called officially i the Reserves and other Lands Disposal and Public Bodies' Empowering Bill. No one has any time to consider whether these clauses should be accepted at all, whether be accepted in the particular form in which thoy are submitted, whether they aro really desired by a majority of the people in whoso interest they aro thus hastily thrust on the Government. „ And the result is that these Bills run sometimes tcAnordinate lengths, axe understood by no one, and in the nature of the case have no Parliamentary sanction but negative, hurried, and silent approval. The new Bill -changes ail that. 'A local authority desiring speci- j fie empowering legislation is reqiiired to submit its proposals in a concrete form •for the consideration of tho Government —to apply, that is to say, for provisional approval of the clause or clauses which it is desired shall be submitted to Parliament—and "no application shall be received by the Ministor after the expiration of the first two months of a session." If the Minister is satisfied that the proposal is ono which may properly be submitted to Parliament, he has it gazetted, and thus all persons locally interested know in advance not only the general intention of such legislation, but the actual language in which that intention (if approved) will be carried into effect. The Government, too, instead of assuming the whole responsibility for such legislation, assumes under the new Bill the responsibility of preliminary investigation, and leaves the rest to Parliareally important change. In fact, apart altogether from the plain advantages of the new procedure, the Bill is to be welcomed aa a sign of a return to an earlier and more thorough and responsible tradition both in Cabinet and in the House., There has been a distinct drift for years into legislation by regulation—which cannot always be avoided, but which is now somewhat freely abused —and an irritating amount of "legislation by reference," which is, bluntly, legislative negligence. It is good to see the Government setting its face against such practices.