THE TOTALISATOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 25, 31 January 1911, Page 11

THE TOTALISATOR.

MOVEMENT IN THE AUSTRALIAN LABOUR PART if. Recent acquisitions to the ranks of Labour legislators have awakened interest in the probable attitude of the party towards various questions which are not included in its programme, but have long vexed the public mind and the public conscience (says the Melbourne Age). Prominent amongst them is the regulation of racecourse betting, a matter in which the two leading States lag behind the smaller States of the Commonwealth and behind New Zealand. The members of the New South Wales Political Labour Leagues will have the opportunity of defining ; their attitude in tiiis connection at ftieir State Conference this month, as a resolution is to be tabled by the Wagga brancii in favour of the legalisation and Slate control of the totalisator. How the voting will go is a matter of uncertainly. In Victoria, the Labour Party is known to be divided on the question, but there is said to be a majority in favour of the machine. It is realised by the latter that the large amount of money invested in this State in bets on Horseracing should not be exploited by a small coterie of bookmakers ; that whatever eviils exist in connection with the turf are aggravated by the layer of odds ; and that, in fact, many of the very worst of them owe their origin to him. They know that the bookmaker, by giving credit, has driven many persons to misfortune. In New Zealand the totalisator has had the effect of heavily reducing the amount of betting. Mr. G. H. Stead says: "The individual amount staked on a single race at present is not nearly as large as was common, say, twenty-five years ago, prior to the introduction of the machine." In 1908-1909 the amount that passed through the totalisator in South Australia was only £388,165. The totalisator has been a great force for good wherever it has been introduced, and it would have been introduced here long; ago but for the shortsighted policy of a certain school of moralists, who, because they cannot stop all gambling, will not stop some of it, and always prefer no bread to half a loaf. When proposals for establishing the totalisator in Victoria were brought before Parliament by Mr. Murray, loud protests were made against the legalisation of gambling. But it was at the in-s-t-aoice of the same objectors that Parliament afterwards placed on the Statute-books enactments under which the racecourses and theii "appendages have become recognised legal entities. Betting on the courses is now carried on within the pale of the law, and, by virtue of regulations framed under the Act. the Government empowers clubs to license bookmakers and exact fees from them. The jjequje jrtw oaAl out loudly Rfiainst

the machine take no exception to the regulation of the liquor traffic. On tho contrary, they are ever asking for more; but the bookmaker thoy defend with fatherly care, and he goes on cheerfully banking the gilded margins which in more progressive countries are the perquisites ot the clubs and the charities. If the totalisafcor were in general use in Victoria the sha-re of the "percentages " would more than equal the total of the charity grants. The rascalism of the turf — the " stiffening " of horses, the "squaring" of jockeys — are unknown to the totalisator. With the bookma-iter betting goes on' for weeks and months before the day of the race, but with the totalisator there is no betting till the day arrives' — none of the ruinous stay-in-town wagering that is a constant drain on the resources of thousands of poor people, not excepting women and children. It may now be hoped, concludes the Age, that New South Wales will join the rest of the States in setting an example to "Victoria by introducing the totalisator, after which event this State may be quickly induced to depart from its attitude of isolated sfupidity, and fall into line with the rest of the Commotnw ealt'h.