ABOUT GAMBLING.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1028, 18 January 1911, Page 4

ABOUT GAMBLING.

THE HON. J. A. MILLAR CRITICISED. Speaking on "the gambling eyil"_ in the Concert Chamber of the Town Hall last evening, the Rev. E. Drake, of Dunedin, several times referred, not in admiration, to. tho attitude of t-he Hon. J. A. Millar towards the gambling question. "Mr. Millar has said," remarked Mr. Drake, "that there is no difference between insuring a house and betting on a horse-race. I do not intend to answer that argument, I intend to let it stand if it can. But I ;i will say that a. man doss not insure a liouse in the hope that it will bo burned down." Later in his address, Mr. Drake referred again to the Minister. "Mr. Millar himself has said," he declared, "that jockeys practise dishonesty, and another legislator has said that 90 per cent, of the bookmakers are dishonest." In a final shot at his Ministerial target, Mr. Drake remarked that not many people would claim, as did the Hon. J. A. Millar, that a man had a right to do what he liked with his own mousy. The possession of money carried with it a sacred obligation. Could it be claimed that the New Zealand working man, earning on an averago £2 or ,£2 10s. a week, had a right to gamble? As a fact by gambling ho was bringing something into his life that at last would destroy it.