STATE LOTTERIES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 1 November 1924, Page 13

STATE LOTTERIES.

MONEY FOR HOSPITALS. ACTION IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA. SYDNEY, Oct./ 16. The rich harvest to be reaped. from legalised gambling seems to be irresistible to the Labour politician. In Queensland for some years now thousands of pounds have been regularly raised for various purposes through the Golden Casket Art Union, and in New South Wales the last Labour Government had all the legislation ready for establishing a similar scheme when it was thrown out of power. The succeeding Nationalist Government showed its hostility to such methods of moneyraising by prohibiting under severe penalties the sale of Golden Casket tickets in this State, but despite all vigilance it is known that considerable trafficking still" goes on. Now the recentlyelected Labour Government of Western Australia has decided to override all the storm of moral objections that such proposals always arouse, and establish a State, lottery in that State. In announcing the provisions of the measure that had been decided upon, the Minister of Health (Mr. Munsie) said that for some considerable time there had. existed a false prejudice against the Government introducing a measure of that description. He did not think that there would be one member who w 7 ould doubt that sweeps, art unions, lotteries, and raffles of all descriptions were being conducted through, out Western Australia at present, and while he did not wish to discredit the motives for which many of them were run, the system was certainly lax. If the Bill became law it was the intention of the Government to put a. stop to sweeps and lotteries as they were being conducted at present. Any money that was available for such purposes could be subscribed to the State lottery, and 'the proceeds would be put to good uses. He wanted to make the lottery as popular as possible. He was only sorry he had not the power to prohibit the Commonwealth grabbing its share of the prizes by way of .income tax. He submitted figures relating to the activities of the Golden Casket lotteries in Queensland. Over-the-counter sales of tickets in Brisbane averaged 500,000 (at 5s 3d per ticket) for each fortnightly “casket.” For a recent lottery 21,496 postal applications for tickets were received from New South Wales, 13,144 from other parts of Queensland, 1141 from Victoria, 846 from Western Australia, 475 from South Australia. 100 from Papua, and 98 from New: ; Zealand. At the stage when these figures were obtained the issue of tickets was still several thousands short of the total. The Queensland Government had made payments out of the proceeds of the scheme to hospitals as follows: 1920-21, £66,785; 1921-22, £100,778; 1922-23. £88,193; 1923-24, £65,835; a total of £321,593. There’ were also payments to hush nursing associations, baby clinics, etc. He intended to appoint agents in the eastern States for the sale of Western Australian lottery tickets. He knew some people would say that the Government had‘no right to attempt to legalise gambling. He would say in reply that extensive gambling was going on at present in the State and no Parliament could stop it.' He had been informed, and he believed reliably, that a firm in Western Australia sent on an average £240.000 each year to Hoba it. He hoped that when the State lottei'y was started it would prove so attractive that it would get at least £150,030 of that sum.