MINISTER AND RACING REVENUE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 267, 9 October 1940, Page 2

MINISTER AND RACING REVENUE

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Some time ago the Minister for Finance, in his effort to justify the waste of benzine at race meetings, made the remarkable statement that out of every pound spent in racing the Government got eight shillings, the owners, etc., got eight shillings, and the punters got the balance—four shillings. A more ridiculous statement was never made in New Zealand. For some time I was intrigued as to the method by which the Minister arrived at the statement. There are two possible ways —both of which are downright nonsense. The first one is as follows: In the pockets of the people are, say, forty thousand pounds. The first time this money goes through the machine, the Government receives four thousand pounds. Then the balance—thirty-six thousand pounds, 'goes' through, and the Government receives another £3600 and so on until the Government has got £16,000 in revenue. Such a procedure is absurd, for the reason if all the money on the course went through the machine on the first race, then the losers would all have to go home stony

broke. The second formulae is as follows: A man puts a pound on a race (whether he wins or loses makes no difference), from which the Government gets two shillings; then the. pound goes through again and again wit’ll the result the Government has got eight shillings of the original pound. This is the greatest piffle that has ever been heard. Let me prove it. As one with a little knowledge of economics, may I explain that the velocity of the pound is denoted by the number five. What we mean by that is that a pound will go through five hands before it returns to the hank. Now, the sales tax in this country is ten' per cent., but if we use Mr Nash’s formulae, it is fifty per cent! For instance : “A” takes a pound note (No. 1234567890) out of the bank and spends it with “B”, the sales tax is two shillings. Then “B” spends it with “C” —another two shillings sales tax and so on until the pound note lias completed its cycle; thus ten shillings of the pound note has gone in sales tax! Could anything be more absurd P And yet that is the kind of piffle Mr Nash tries to p>ut over. There is only one conclusion we can come to and that is Mr Nash allowed himself to be imposed upon l>v some plausible punter. However, I think we can leave Mr Nash and his punter friend to solve the riddle for themselves.. . Contrary to public opinion (which is usually wrong, in any case) there is no profitable revenue to be received from racing, or any other form of gambling. Gambling is anti-social and uneconomic, and every pound so spent is an injury to business. Let me prove this. In the case of the pound note cited above, it will he noticed that every time the pound was spent an exchange of commodities took place. When a man spends a pound lie gets a pound’s worth of goods, which means that the wheels of industry are kept moving to replace the goods sold ; this, indeed is the only real source of wealth and, of course, revenue. The time and money spent in gambling is sheer economic waste; it produces nothing and industry as a result is impoverished. We cannot have more production and more racing. There are two taxes I am opposed to—gambling and liquor. I am opposed to them because they fall most heavily upon those least able to bear them—the women and children; they pay the taxes and get absolutely nothing m return. I am; etc., 7/10/40.