LABOUR DIVIDED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 256, 28 September 1932, Page 6

LABOUR DIVIDED.

ON GAMING BILL. PROPOSED LICENSING OF BOOK- , MAKERS. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 27. An indication that the Labour Party is divided on the question of licensing bookmaker's was given in the House today during tho brief first reading debate on the Gaming Amendment Bill of Mr H. T. Armstrong, which seeks to make provision in this direction. Appealing to the Government to take up the measure, Mr Armstrong said the Bill proposed to set up a licensing committee comprising a Wellington stipendiary magistrate and representatives of the Racing and Trotting Conferences, bookmakers and the Government, which would be the sole judge of the qualifications of an applicant for a book, maker’s license. Even in the present depression, he said, bookmakers were looking just as prosperous as before. A tax on bookmakers would double the revenue obtained by racing clubs and would double the revenue obtained by the Government from racing. Why should the bookmakers be exempt from all taxation? he asked. The Government had increased taxation all round and had allowed the bookmakers to go free.

If the committee were to license 300! bookmakers, which was just half tha number in the Auckland province, ah £2OO each it would bring in £60,000, ha asserted. If they did business amounting to £4,000,000 a tax of 5 per cent, would bring in £200,000, and a tax on tickets would bring in £SOOO, making a total of £265,000.

“In the event of Mr Armstrong getting his Bill brought down for consideration, it will give me the greatest amount of pleasure to vote against it,” said Mr P. Fraser, who explained that a number of his colleagues in tha Labour Party would take up a similar attitude. The Bill could be very well postponed for twenty years,” he added. The first reading 'was taken on tha voices and the second reading was fixed for October 19.