GAMING AMENDMENT BILL

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 20, 23 July 1927, Page 8

GAMING AMENDMENT BILL

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I am not a member of a racing club, a newspaper proprietor, or a parsou, but only one of the rank and file, the comrnou or garden variety of ratepayer and family man. So I nm not an interested party in this measure. Therefore I do object to the above measure being given any importance or standing by the Government.

I' have supported the present party for the last twenty-five years, both in its period of opposition and since coming into power, but if it wishes to force the people of this country to put the Labour Party into office, it is certainly going the right way. to do so.

Gambling is a vice, not a virtue, and as stated by the Magistrate in Christchurch recently, "those who grow fat by taking advantage of this weakness of the public, prostitute the very name of sportsman." This was said to a bookmaker, but it equally applies to the racing club. I object then to the time of our representatives being spent on discussing.this matter while so many important matters are neglected. If racing cannot live without demoralising the community, then turn the courses into football grounds, and give us true sport.—l am, etc;, .. ANTI-HUMBUG. (Tj tht Editor.) Sir,—l and many others wish to thank Mr. Harry and the members of the Wellington Ministers' Asaociation for the noble stand they are taking against the proposed Gaming Amendment Bill. They are solidly out for the good of tho community, and we we very glad to have such good men amongst us. Tho public appoints legislators, and entrust them with the making of laws for the well-being and uplift of the people, not for their downdragging, and we have a right to expect them to do their duty. Wo consider the proposed Amendment Bill would be a retrograde step, as one can scarcely lift the newspapers without being appalled at the many instances of the evil effects of gambling on our people.—l am, etc.,

"Is gambling a sin?" asks another correspondent (J. D. Sievwright). It is a crime to help oneself to the money of

others to invest on the totalisator, and that is punishable at laiv. By making facilities for gambling too cheap and easy evil may be done. It is the politicians' duty to save many people from themselves by making such restrictions and regulations as will lessen inducements to criminality. AU s morab"sts are agreed on that point. When it comes to the question of sinning, that is a matter with which the law takes nothing to do. That is the individual's concern. And conscience determines. If the Christian section of the community attempts and succeeds in imposing puritanical restrictions on the freedom of the human spirit which is_ prone to take risks in all walks of life, then morbidity must overtake human ity, and worse evils result. History proves that. Interference is not for the pulpit. Direction, exhortation, persuasion to avoid all appearance of evil is its aim and laudable; but a determination to prevent is neither wise nor Christian. What more? The pulpit's duty is to point the right way to man and then leave him to pursue the dictates of that larger Freedom whereby he has been made free. The politician's duty is to give expression to the will of the people. When the pulpit has succeeded in its Divine mission, then all men -noil do right and act perfectly. The pulpit cannot succeed by the aid of law, therefore the imposition of prohibitions upon the freedom of the expression of the human spirit—and a reasonable amount of gambling is in these days such au expression—then whatever it may do, the pulpit.must fail. It would fail in this case even if it succeeded in its aim, because it has not first of all changed that which is inherent in human nature. You do not change the nature of a lion by putting him iv a cage. Gambling rampant is) destructive; but gambling is the expression of a spirit in the British people that has helped build the Empire—from the Armada to Jutland, from Drake to Jellicoe: Individual judgment is its true restraint."