THE BOOKMAKER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20968, 3 September 1931, Page 12

THE BOOKMAKER.

Sir, —Although, of course, there are exceptions, bookmakers as a class do not comprise the types of better citizens. When they Had their day in New Zealand much trouble was caused by them. Perhaps the most prevalent was the downfall of honest young men through appropriating the moneys of their employers to meet the insistent demands from a bookmaker to whom they had fallen deeply in debt. Betting could take place without the actual cash necessary on the totalisator. Then we had the insidious bookmaker's clerk taking small bets on the street-corners, here, there and everywhere, collecting the half-crowns of the poorer classes and encouraging betting among those really unable to pay. 'Further, the fact that the period of the bookmaker was so short and unwholesome that the legislation had to be again enforced shows what evil effects it had. The bookmaker by law is a criminal, and those respecting the law should realise this. There have been no reasonable suggestions offered why the law should again be repealed; therefore, people should, co-operate to see that it is more strongly enforced. Wal Law.

Sir, —Your correspondent "Revenue" imagines me as a misanthrope sitting on a lonely hill and railing at the foibles of my kind. He does not know me. I have a sense of humour., That sense of humour does not lead me to "bitter resentment" at the feeblo criticism of a man who praises a gang of outlaws employing as a smoke screen, returned soldiers. My knowledge of the devastations caused in the ranks of the decent by credit bookmakers goes back to my business days in Dunedin, where I saw fellowworkmen spoiled and disgraced by them. In a fairly long ministerial career I have met a long trail of wreckage. I have come through bitter experience to regard these men as tho worst enemies of youth, and to desire exceedingly their extermination. "Revenue" clamours for evidence that the licensed bookmaker would not be a good thing. My reply, which he ignores, is that the licensed bookmaker had a three-year run, and proved himself to be so uncontrollable and so unmitigated a nuisanee that he was abolished by an almost unanimous vote of public opinion. Will "Revenye feel "bitter resentment" at this stubborn fact, which puncture®, all his tyres ? Does he suppose that the public has no memory . \ licensed bookmaker, with palaftial offices in Queen Street, with his licensed underlings at tho gate of every factory, and on the door step of every warehouse, and with all his debts recoverable by law, would be the consequence of "Revenue's' plea. No sport would be clean from his machinations. Football matches would be tampered with, straws in the gutter would serve for his flutter. If Revenue" will not see that £1,000,000 diverted from the pockets of the bookmakers into the regular avenues of trade would be a gain felt in thousands of homes, and in all branches of trade, other people can see it very clearly. If "Revenue" never meets people whose efficiency and whose honesty is sapped by perpetual betting with credit bookmakers, he must live a life apart from his kind. There are threo policies open:—(1) That embodied in Sir Joseph Ward's legislation, the restriction of gambling to racecourses. (2) The policy of "Revenue" who is for licensing some hundreds of bookmakers to ply their trade in every place where men most do congregate. (3) The policy of tho racing clubs, which is to leave tho bookmaker whero he is now, an illegal, but unresting, agency, in our midst, and to add to our troubles by opening the post offices as betting centres also. I believe that Sir Joseph Ward's policy is the true policy and that it can be enforced, and that in this time of financial stringency tho cleaning up of the bookmaker is an obvious national duty. To say this is my only purpose in writing. J. J. North.