National Lotteries

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 69, 14 December 1932, Page 11

National Lotteries

Sir.—ls there not something approaching the smug and hypocritical in the attitude of the Coalition Government toward State lotteries? I notice that for the past sixteen months the Government of New South Wales has netted over a million through its lotteries. In this country the Government is careful ro make a draw of the little “art” (?) unions which are promoted from time to time to benefit particular bodies or institutions, and also taxes the totalisator money, yet it will not openly lend itself to the promotion of big State lotteries and so help to prevent the flood of money which leaves this country every week for various outside lotteries. The smugness referred to applies to the humbugging title by which we designate our little lotteries. The word "art” and the word "union” serve as traditional camouflage for what are nothing more nor less than little lotteries. lam quite sure that if the Government promoted a £lO,OOO lottery every quarter there would be a very substantial profit at the end of the year, and few would be much the poorer for it. I am perfectly well aware of the attitude of the Church and its arguments in this matter, and I admire the stand they take. Gambling, in. their view, is one of the seven deadly sins, and they stand four-square against the practice being encouraged by the Government. That attitude would be a very proper one if this community were not permeated with a specious kind of humbug which wraps the “art union” and other means of raising the wind by offering money prizes in pretty tinselled paper which is supposed to deceive the public, but really does nothing of the kind. Notwithstanding the fine tirades of the Rev. J. R. Blanchard, life and our progress through it, designed as it is by our present mode of civilisation, is a gamble from the cradle to the grave, and just as a people cannot be made moral by Act of Parliament. neither can they be prevented from gambling by all the man-made laws ever promulgated. In'the meantime, let the Government consider during the recess that during the past sixteen months the New South Wales Government has made over . a million sterling through its State lotteries, and much of it we;«» from New Zealand. —I am, etc., FLUTTER. Wellington, December 10.