THE RACING CONFERENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 23 July 1907, Page 4

THE RACING CONFERENCE.

SIR GEO. CLIFFORD'S VIEWS. IN DEFENCE OF THE TOTALISATOR. WELLINGTON, Monday. The Racing Conference opened to-day Sir George Clifford presiding. Th Accident Fund showed total receipt: £7557 ; claims paid, £786 ; claims no! settled, £54; credit balance, £6522. Mi George Hunter gave notice to move that the contributions should be reduced from £1 to 10s. The Committee to consider totalisatoi permits and dates of race meetings waf appointed as follows : — Messrs Fried lander, Alison, Goodbehere, Hood, Wil liams, Abbot, and Mackay. The President, in his address, sale that all indications showed that thf sport of racing had steadily adtonced ir popularity, and that those selected tgovcrn the sport had made every effort U secure ths increasing confidence of it; supporters. No trade of profesion oi pui suit which admitted of monetary pro-

fit had ever been wholly exempt from isolated attempts to reap the golden reward of success by forbidden or even fraudulent methods; but assuredly in this country the turf did not furnish an undue proportion of such cases. Attacks upon the totalisator were stili occupying tho prejudiced and misinformed. To the former argument was inapplicable, but the open-minded inquirer would find little in the conduct of race meetings or in the effects of the totalisator to warrant the abolition of an amusement affording much innocent pleasure. The substitution of the totalisator for the bookmaker had lessened temptations, and its removal would produoe the effect diametrically opposite to that sought for by its misguided opponents.