COST OF ART UNIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20929, 20 July 1931, Page 13

COST OF ART UNIONS.

Sir. —The letter of "Disappointed Investor" is an interesting corollary to the facts I cited to the presbytery and reported in your jssue of July 15. If it is correct that the Minister's statement concealed the payment of 20 per cent, commission we have here another instance of the demoralising effect of this legalised gambling. Barely 12 months ago I drew attention to the disproportion between the total receipts of these art union schemes and the amount paid to the funds for which they are organised. The fact is that the urge to all this sort of thing comes from those whose real object is to exploit a popular craze. If it were not for these commissions we should hear very little of the need for art unions and sweepstakes. Just recently a prospectus was issued for a million pound lottery on behalf of charities at Home. The promoters were to operate from the Continent; 50 per cent, of the total was tarmarked for expenses and commissions; 25 per cent, for charities; and 25 per cent, for the promoters! The following words by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Gregg, in an appeal for "straight-out" giving to the Rotunda Hospital, which had refused to participate in the recent sweepstake will be of interest to New Zealanders:—"Oh, what is the harm of people having their little flutter?" I am asked. I reply, that this is not a little flutter; besides, all the ways of having a little flutter are still open to them. This is a vast piece of organised national solicitation, whereby, with the direct sanction and support of responsible citizens, men, women and children are turned away from the steady-going practice of earning their daily living to put their hope and trust in blind chance. The responsibility of those who are the consenting parties of this great gaming system and to the commending of it to tho people is terrible and tremendous. It would be hard to find anything more cynically callous than this tiading upon the greed and profiting by the losses of others, many of whom are in dire indigence, for the sake of an object which exists to servo the poor. It is tho stark materialism -which underlies the whole thing that disgusts me. Hitherto hospitals have been a groat humanitarian agency, the friends of the people, serving the public with a noble and irreproachable charity. Now tho hospitals tell us ominously: "We must have money, and money, even it it has come in ways wo would rather avoid." They are prepared to encourage the pojmlation to gamble to provide them with money; and here we have the old argument for wrong-doing: "Necessity knows no law."- It was the German justification for invading Belgium—-"necessity knows no law." It is the hospitals' argument for the sweepstakes—it is the argument of the less respected members of tho community. Ireland has become very popular as a purveyor of international gambling facilities. ... All eyes have been on Ireland recently, and will bo soon again;, and what is it the world looks to see ? Ireland's public men standing round a revolving drum. ... for Ireland to acquire popularity and money at such a cost is a national humiliation. Devonport, Lawson Mabsh. ;