THE GAMBLER’S HALT.

Evening Star, Issue 20985, 26 December 1931, Page 8

THE GAMBLER’S HALT.

It is improbable now that Phar Lap will go to America. Tiio reason is that tho border racing centre has been comparatively deserted of late, and tho racing club which gave the most valuable stake of tho year in the world has closed down for the time being. (Incidentally it is highly probable that, if there had been proprietary racing clubs in New Zealand, these would by now have thrown up tho sponge also, whereas our present clubs, which arc not permitted to amass profits, have struggled on, for the most part incurring losses under a system of Government taxation which everyone knows, and most admit, is of a penal nature.) Possibly the hitch in the plans for tho trip of one of the two best thoroughbreds ever bred and reared in New Zealand will bring home to tho people of this country as few other things would do the condition of business and finance in tho United States. It is understood that prior to the Dunedin wool sale last*week a buying broker who has regularly executed big orders from tho United States at tho New Zealand sales, having this season received no instructions from that country to buy, cabled half a dozen of his customary clients in New York, but was not honoured with replies. Undoubtedly a period of intense stress is being experienced there. Tho failure of many banks and tho closing, temporary it is hoped, of others has tied up immense suras of money, and to-day’s cables suggest that the process is likely to continue for some time to come. The president of tho largest life insurance company in the United States has just painted a startling picture of American economic conditions before tho United States Senate Banking Committee, emphasising particularly the heavy losses of the railway companies, for the volume of railway traffic is a fairly reliable guide as to trade activity or trade stagnation. And Sir Arthur Duckham, a well-known industrialist, who has just returned to England from America, says that tho people there have lost faith in everything, and the dole seems inevitable. America’s unemployed number far more than Britain’s ever did, even in proportion to population, and the burden the dole would impose on America’s already stressed Government finances can readily be imagined. “The gambling boom has finished,” says Sir Arthur Duckham, and ho has put his finger on tho sore unerringly. Americans are great gamblers, though not as a people on horse racing as are the people of England, Australia, and New Zealand. It may be remembered that when tho American fleet visited New Zealand and our racing clubs, as was their not altogether altruistic mode of honouring distinguished visitors, organised special meetings in its honour, tho American bluejacket showed himself rather a stranger to the race track, and occasionally was frank enough to say that racing bored him, and that there were more rapid ways of acquiring or losing money by games of chance than by investing eight times in the course of five hours. But apart from the national games of poker and “ crap ” (which we understand to be dicing) the American people since the war have been persistent gamblers in stocks and shares. This has not been confined to tho upper and middle classes, but has spread through tho working classes in a degree hardly conceivable hero. All kinds of minor investment trusts sprang into existence, and ono particular avenue exploited was that of credulous women. These trusts conducted most of their business by mail, and with the less scrupulous it was a practice to 1‘ le the arrival of their prospectuses and other communications so that the correspondence would not be subject to surveillance of the male head of the house, absent from home most of tho day at his avocation. Financial critics have severely criticised many of the banks for the encouragement and financing of the mushroom class of investment trusts. These latter have in many cases folded their tents like the Arabs, their clients are rueing the day they took to stock speculation, and many of the banks have suspended or are in grave difficulties. The reaction from an orgy is as painful a period in tho financial as in the physical sense. But it has to be gono through, and with sensible people it serves as a warning nob to repeat an orgy of that kind. Though many people in New Zealand strongly disapprove of horse racing as fostering the gambling spirit inherent in man (and woman), it appears that in our case it provides a safety valve that prevents a boiler explosion such as ono may compare the present American debacle with. Moreover, for the most part the “ investor ” on horse racing has a hobby which involves a healthy day in the open air in pleasant surroundings.