PATRIOTISM AND GAMBLING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16035, 29 September 1915, Page 3

PATRIOTISM AND GAMBLING.

Sir,l do not wish to take- a hand in the controversy about raffles, believing that the fallacies so copiously and persistently poured forth on the subject may well be left "to rattle in the sieve of time." But there is a point in the game of controversy at which an impartial looker-on may justifiably cry "foul!" A meeting of clergymen declares thai the employment of a lottery to augment the funds in aid of " our soldiers and their dependants " implies that the latter. " care only for the actual money value of any nothing at all about file spirit in which it is given." It also implies, according to the same authorities, ** that the people of Auckland • will not contribute unless an appeal is made to the love of gain. Ana the Rev. Mr. Monckton—of whom I should be sorry to speak otherwise than with the highest respectseems to' assume that the money put into a raffle in aid of the funds is not given ungrudgingly ! I confess I had a different notion of these little amusements and games of chance. I thought they were means of " livening things up," creasing the wheels, and promoting the- pleasant and genial temper that encourages cheerful giving. I did not know that the average contributor of a shilling to a raffle carefully calculated his chances before risking his coin, and, when he failed to draw a prize, went away cursing his luck, and wishing he had his shilling back again. - Surely the suggestions I have quoted are quite unworthy of the source from . which they have come. Their essential meanness and unfairness could not have been present to the minds of their makers, who, in their intense straining at the sporting" gnat, failed to see what, a, camel of .absurdity they were swallowing.. But let us be charitable. A controversialist, hard up for. an argument will .sometimes" lose his sense of humour, and without deliberate malice will sav what is unfair and absurd. Let us leave it at that. To use an expression suggested by the Rev. Mr. MoncEFon, it is " une grande betise." v'r ;

*V * _t_ l- ' — -J- Gr_„s. -Mount Eden, September 28, 1915. ?;