GAMING AMENDMENT BILL

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20987, 16 October 1933, Page 8

GAMING AMENDMENT BILL

PROTEST BY MR L. M. ISITT Trenchant criticism of the Gaming Amendment Bill was offered by Mr L. M. Isitt in an address at the Christchurch Salvation Army Citadel last night. "We have here a menace to the Dominion," said Mr Isitt. "The fell purpose of the bill is to spread the evil which has already been the cause of moral and economic hurt to thousands of persons, and this in the face of financial stress. All the proposed gaming amendments seem to have been introduced under a thin disguise to divert money absorbed by the bookmakers to the clubs. It has been declared that the main purpose is to save the people from moral and financial harm by concentrating betting in the limits of the racecourse. "But in the teeth of this, a bill is brought down to make it possible for every man and woman to slip into the nearest post oiTice and telegraph bets to any meeting throughout the year. This means secret betting. The wife can engage in it without the knowledge of the husband, and vice versa. Sons and daughters of adult age can do it without the knowledge of their parents, and temptation will be increased by the publication of the odds. We are told that legislation cannot make people righteous, but every sane man recognisss that it can make evil difficult or easy. "Surely there must be thousands 01 men and women who have a real love for their country—real enough to make them oppose this great evil by every means in their power," he said. At the conclusion of Mr Isitt's address the congregation registered a the biH v