FINANCIAL STRINGENCY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 139, 16 June 1927, Page 9

FINANCIAL STRINGENCY

ENGLISH RAGING AFFECTED BY

MONEY SCARCITY

.The frantic efforts of the champions of t«e. bookmakers .mEogland to blame the Bets Tax for all thStroubles of racing, has only amused the people who know" the real position. There was a good deal of discussion early in the season in England of the ialling-off in attendances and receipts at race meetings and business men agreed that it was due to the industrial upheaval of last year and the: consequent general tightness of money.- Apparently New Zealand, is iiot the only country whose financial side of racing is feeling the effect 'of general depression. I«. 8!E Wli lter ,_Gilbey' a Popular figuro on th lurf for half a century, told a "Daily Mail reporter that racing was one of the first concerns to feel the effects of financial stringency. He added: - ."The whole country is feeling the effects of last year's coal stoppage, and it is hardly to be expected that racing can prove an exception. It is perfectly ridiculous to suggest that the trouble has been brought about by the tax on betting. The tax has not had a fair trial.

Apart from the industrial conditions, which. have made everybody poorer, the bookmakers by their actions have made racing less attractive. The odds they offer now are really quite absurd, s "I have been watching flat racing very closely, and I am •convinced that if the bookmakers had been more liberal in the odds they offered there would have been less talk of falling off of racing crowds. Wh'a.t the bookmakers apparently do not realise is that if they continue on the lines they have adopted they will make the totalisator a feature of English racing sooner thaii. they/expect. There ib a growing feeling, on the part of regular racegoers that they are not being fairly treated, and I ! believe-ther^-.would be a majority in fay- . our of the pari-mutuel system." | Mr. Stanley Ford, who is secretary to the Lincoln, Nottingham, Leicester, Derby, and Birmingham racecourses, said: "There has been a steady improvement in the attendances since the flat racing season began, and we are hoping that 2 trade continues to improve matters will return to normal on the racecourses?

"The Beta Tax has not done any good— we realise that, but the bookmakers have also brought matters to a head, and something will have to be done. At present the tax hits the, racecourse too heavily, for the racegoer has to pay entertainment tax and is then- taxed on his betting, whereas the S.P. offices get off much more lightly."