Racing and War.

Manawatu Times, Volume XL, Issue 13523, 6 October 1916, Page 6

Racing and War.

SOUTHERN" PAPER'S OPINION.

Our view is that a sensible reduction in the enjoyment of racing and in the considerable expenditure involved would have been proper says the "Lyttelton Times" and adds: It would certainly have been less inconsistent with the gravity of the period than was the increase sanctioned by Parliament in its first war session. The granting of additional totalisator permits, the raising of stake-money, the accumulation of profits by clubs and the writing down of assets to absorb some of the profits, the continuance of racing not in a smaller but a much greater degree than before the war —these proceedings are sufficient to incur the disapproval of most sane, patriotic citizens. Several men quite prominent in the support and administration of Tacing, we know, share this opinion, and we are surprised thai? their views have not found concrete expression in an appreciable reduction of racing v/hile the Empire is in such terrible travail. Most of the clubs, however, have voluntarily and generously given their total profits to war funds, while the State is collecting revenue from them on a higher scale than before. As to the position of the Wellington Racing Club, our sympathies are with Mr J. J. McGrath, who endeavoured at the annual meeting to show the club its opportunity to help the State. The club's figures repeal fa ;largely enhanced revenue since the outbreak of war, and it would be idle 1.0 separate that prosperity from the fact that the course and the soldiers' training camps are in proximity. The club appears to/ have taken a narrow view in regard to the use of its surplus. Its prosperity is probably greater, relatively than that of other clubs, and yet its contributions to patriotic funds are substantially smaller. In these circumstances it is rather odd to find the president suggesting that the subscriptions of all the clubs should be pooled for the establishment of a soldiers' home in <the Hatt Valley. Of course the members of the Wellington Racing Club may do as they choose with their own money, but by comparison with the rest they certainly come out of the inspection not too well.