ART UNIONS

Hawera Star, Volume L, 28 August 1930, Page 7

ART UNIONS

THE OTHER. SIDE OF CASE. REPLY TO THE CRITICS. Some of the comments made recently bv clergymen who turn their laces against art unions are of such an exasperated nature as to lead one to the conclusion that the objectors have permitted themselves to lose touch with the anarch of events, says the Marlborough Express” m a leading article. It is all very nice for well-meaning o-entlemen to. advance the purely academic view that the lower temptations placed in their way the better for the community. It may be that the ideal citizen is a saintly individual, content to work five and a. half days a week, and to take liis. pay envelope home intact on Friday nights, receiving in exchange from a prudent wile a couple of shillings or so to expend, say, upon the joys of strictly censored movies, with an occasional soiree., or perhaps, a, football match, by way of relaxation; but one takes leave to doubt it. , , , In actual fact, though he does not measure up to this standard, the average New Zealander is a very wholesome and very human individual, who has learned to smile tolerantly at the motherly requirements of such restrictive legislation as; the Gaming Act, and, to. a greater or lesser degree, to follow his own inclinations, which, time has proved, are not so very vicious after all. These inclinations are responsible lor the fact that, in spite of legislative banishment, and the best efforts of an efficient police force, the bookmaker continues to flourish, while every ship which voyages towards Tasmania carries in its hold sacks of letters addressed to a mystic personage who is really the manager of what is affectionately known as “Tatt’s.” The average citizen makes no secret of the fact that he loves his “little, flutter” —and it has to be admitted that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred lie is none the worse for it. It is idle to urge that a community which rubs friendly shoulders in every town and; hamlet' with bookmakers; which places, upwards of five millions a year on the totalisator —and no one knows liow many thousand a year in the illegal Tasmanian lottery—is in danger of being corrupted by the opportunity of investing half-crowns in strictlysupervised art unions, the profits of which, it should be emphasised, go to deserving institutions, whose claims are investigated by a meticulous Department before they are approved. It can be argued that art unions bring opportunity for morally-questdon-ab'le investment before people who would) not otherwise be tempted; but at least they are out in the open, and 1 are not conducted in tlie. dark by-ways into which well-meant restrictions upon the sporting instinct of the community have driven people; and, after all, if the citizen cannot be subjected to tlie temptation to invest small sums in this harmless manner he is poorly equipped to resist the acid test which is likely to be applied to all of us sooner or later. It is surely more wholesome to invest half-crowns in New Zealand, and keep the money in the country, than to wink at -tlie exportation of countless thousands of postal notes to Hobart; and the -reformers would be more profitably engaged in attempting to stop that leakage of the public resources than in harping upon the comparatively innocuous art union. They anight also achieve much by altering the present restrictive system which is the reason for the prosperity of the bookmaker. The figures which are being used by objectors to the art union policy to lend point to their arguments become very harmless when they are carefully examined. Years ago, in the days of a, former Government, one solitary art union was so badly rim that it returned a profit of only £IOO for an expenditure of over £6OOO. The fact that the objectors still trail this single mismanaged fiasco in support of .their arguments serves to emphasise their weakness; for, as against this one bad case, there has not been an instance in which the funds of some public organisation have not benefitted very materially—the average profit being well over 50 per cent, of the total investments. The Minister for Internal Affairs, who has had to bear tlie brunt- of the attacks on the system, can afford to maintain his imperturbability, for he. better than anyone else, knows all the facts; and lie is secure in the knowledge that there is general public sympathy with the policy, so Jong as the community is adequately safeguarded against exploitation,' as it is at present.