Betting and Gambling.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18204, 15 October 1924, Page 8

Betting and Gambling.

The letter ■which we publish to-day from the Rev. W. J. .Williams charges us with talking "rubbish," we think with bearing false witness, with having a "lively imagination," with using arguments that wc do not "really be"lieve," with making "ridiculous "assumptions," and with "ignoring "obvious facts"; from which we conclude that Mr Williams is angry. For the proof of all those pleasant characteristics is that we do not shore Mr Williams's belief that the racecourse leads straight to the Devil. We think instead that the world is rather better for racing than worse; that if the turf does not pretend to be an improving place it is yet for tens of thousands a happy way of escape; and that no one, however good and wise ho is, is improved by consuming his own smoke for ever. To the man who is determined to hate and despise hi 3 fellows it makes little difference whether we build grandstands or mission-halls; but it does not follow, beeause some can find or escape from themselves without assistance, that all can. The Court reports that Mr Williams regards as falsification of our statement that prejudice and ignorance inspire the opposition to racing are evidence of nothing but the fact that many men are weak. If racing haa to be forbidden because some men are ruined by it, jewellery will have to be forbidden because the sight of it lures women to theft, and orchards because they have never yet failed to overcome small boys. In the remarks which Mr attributes to the Chief Justice "gambling" means excessive gambling, Which everybody knows to be an evil, and the use which Mr Williams makes of the pronouncement is as irrelevant therefore, and as improper, as his remarks on the question of revenue. It is a fact that racing brings a considerable sum annually to the State, but "The Press" has never defended sport because of its assistance to the Treasury. We believe that all sport has a social sanction, and that racing, because of the immense number of people who find pleasure and relief in it, stands comfortably on its own legs.