BETTING AND THE NATION

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 142, 16 June 1923, Page 8

BETTING AND THE NATION

INTERVIEW WITH FINANCIAL EXPERT

AN ECONOMIC DISADVANTAGE.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 4th May.

Betting and the tax on betting will be questions very widely discussed during the next few months. In the course of hie Budget speech, the Chancellor of the Exchequer expressed his sympathy with a tax, but he left the matter in the hands of a committee which will in due course have a report to make. In the meantime, Sir Robert Kindersley, a director of the Bank of England and the founder of the National Savings Movement, has expressed an oj-.iiioh which is bound to carry weight because of his standing in the business world and because he approaches the subject purely from the economic viewpoint.

Gambling Sir Robert defined! in the course of an interview as the exchange of a certainty for an uncertainty. He thought that it would be generally recognised that this exchange of certainty for uncertainty, or stability for fluctuation, would be regarded as detrimental to the economic well-being of the community.

CLOG TO EFFICIENCY.

"This," he said, "is particularly important at the present time, when persistent steadiness of effort is needed to replace the wealth destroyed by the war; to counteract the vast derangement of the machinery of business and finance, which are a consequence of the war, and to increase the wealth of the nation,- upon which its social welfare directly depends. The next twenty years is probably going to be a period of intense industrial and commercial competition throughout the .world, and the inefficient will be left behind in the race. Nothing, in my opinion, interferes so much with the efficiency of the great mass of people as the present betting disease, which is spreading like a cancer throughout every class of tho community. No doubt this notable increase in the habit of betting is one of the many evidences existent to-day of that restlessness and craving for excitement which has manifested itself since' the war. Before the war, the nation, with its small debt, may have been in a position to disregard this clog to its general efficiency, but with the weight of our present debt, and the certainty of keen competition from our rivals in the future, we cannot afford to encourage a habit which is rapidly undermining our capacity for concentration. DIRECT ANTITHESIS OF THRIFT.

_ "Evidence is not wanting that betting is responsible for at least as much, iE not more, misery in the homes of this country than is drinking. Much' might be said to show that gambling is economically disadvantageous to the individual and to the community. It remains to be'considered whether the introduction of a tax on betting, with the fuller legal recognition of gambling which such a tax would necessarily involve, would or would not increase the amount of economic disadvantage. The Select Committee on Betting of 1902 expressed the opinion that the fuller legalisation of gambling would increase its extent, ■and this opinion, doubtless, would be generally endorsed. If this be so—although the effects are not readily susceptible of measurement —it is probable that the economic disadvantages to the State from the encouragement of gambling would far outweigh any benefit that might result from the revenue to be derived from a tax on betting. In any case, it is most undesirable that any Act of Legislature—namely, the State in its corporate capacity—should tend definitely to promote the economic detriment of the country, and thereby diminish the extent of its social wellbeing.

"The introduction of a tax on betting, accompanied, as it must be, by the recognition and even the approval of a system which produces economic disadvantages, would be a bad thing in itself, and is at tho same time directly contrary to the policy which has long been adopted by the State of encouraging saving, and the wise expenditure of money which saving promotes. t Saving, with a view to wise spending,' is the direct antithesis of gambling, ajid a Legislators that encourages both stultifies itself. It has long been evident to those most familiar with the facts that the bookmaker is the keenest competitor of all the agencies for the promotion of thrift. This competition is in essence between prosperity and the reverse.

AN ECONOMIC DISADVANTAGE.

"We arrive, therefore, at this con-' elusion: the habit of gambling is an economic disadvantage to the community, since it not only. tends to apply the wages earned by work in ways that are less good than they might be, but it also, on a most extensive scale, lessens that steady industry upon which, from both a domestic Snd an international point of view, the . prosperity of the country, particularly at the present time, fundamentally depends. At the same time it has to be recognised that the habit of betting has obtained so strong a hold upon large numbers . of people that its total prevention is impossible. It would manifestly be for the good of the country if people found their pleasures in other ways, but so long as betting is legalised, it is distinctly advisable to make it a source of revenue for the State, and to'impose the highest feasible rate of tax. In doing this, however, tho aim of the legislation should not be to increase revenue by increasing the extent of betting, but rather to limit and restrain the extent of the gambling, recognising that the less the volume of betting, and consequently the smaller the yield of the tax, the greater will be the real financial advantage to the country." The Betting Commission will consist of fifteen members, but its final constitution has not yet been decided ou. The impression at Westminster is that its task will be a difficult one, and the time occupied considerable. The opponents of the tax are already marshalling their forces.