GAMBLING. "A SOCIAL CANCER."

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1908, Page 2

GAMBLING. "A SOCIAL CANCER."

ADDRESS BY HON. G. FOWLDS. An address on the subject of "Gambling" was given by the Hon. George Fowlds in connection with the Congregational Union last evening. Gambling, declared the speaker, was the negation of reason and the enthronement of anarchy in the relations of humanity. The negation of reason was idiocy, and the devotees of Rambling were idiotic. The gambling evil 'was as widespread in New Zealand as in other countries. In the year 1891-2 the investments on the totalisator amounted to £506,078, and ir 1906^7 to £1,837,095, though the racing 'permits had been reduced in that time from 234 to 139. At a- little meeting held at A&hhurst on 28th December last, the receipts at the totalisator amounted to £13,011! The fact was that gambling was a canker responsible for more degradation, misery, and crime than any other evil they had 'in their midst. It was sometimes urged in extenuation that life itself was a gamble, that farmers gambled with their crops, and fire insurance companies offered them £100 to 12s 6d that their houses would not be burned down. There ,wns a clear line of demarcation, howover, between legitimate business and gambling. The essence of gambling was the desire to get something for nothing, tho transference of property from ono individual to another on a basis c< chance. Buying cheap and selling dear wiis not gambling, but buying grain or other produce against a future delivery and selling it before that time was gambling, pure and 'simple. • LAND SPECULATION. Tho very worst form of gambling, however, was speculation in land values. Land was limited, differing in this respect from corn, in which speculation might be defeated by the introduction of further stocks. Until they had dealt with this gambling in land on definite principles of reform, tho community was not likely to be rid of gambling in oat-3, ov-sr cards and races. In brief, gambling was a reversion to barbarism, MEASURES OF REFORM. To minimise tho gambling evil, it wus necessary to improve the social coiij ditions of life. A Bill has been passed dining tho last session to cope with the evil, and he believed lhat by its agency the fcu'in of gambling hitherto fostered in the workshops and factories of the Dominion was now practically extinct. The gambling evil must be met by educating publiq opinion, then by circumscrbing tho operation of gambling, and most of all by tho improvement of social conditions. A hearty vote of thanks was carried by acclamation for tho address.