GAMING LEGISLATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21879, 15 August 1934, Page 15

GAMING LEGISLATION

Sir, —Mr. Oliver Nicholson has (as the Americans put it) said a "mouthful." His address on the affairs of the Racing Club reveals the mentality of the sporting group. This country is burdened with a heavy deficit. It is also laden with taxation, so that boys and girls are mulcted a shilling in the pound on their scanty earnings. Yet here are racing lords who manage a sport which is a drain on the resources of the country, a "superfluity of naughtiness" as the King James puts it, and they demand relief from a taxation which leaves them with a surplus some thousands strong. Let the average man note for future use this callous pica. But Mr. Oliver Nicholson is out for legislation which will exceedingly increase a menacing turnover, for every increase in gambling investment is a national loss. He calls aloud for the establishment of 3000 betting offices in the Dominion. He wants every post office to be a substation for the totalisator. He wants every post office clonk to handle bets as part of daily duty. He wants this inflammable material put through hands from which the strictest honesty is asked. He wants the public who do their lawful business to be elbowed and incommoded by excited punters. He also wants the papers to be licensed to spread the fever by publishing dividends. He professes to believe that by these two ruinous proposals the bookmaker will be mortally wounded. The bookmaker can look with equanimity at these cuts. He has but to offer 5 per cent better terms than the machine to flourish like the green hay tree. People who have a care for their country had better wake up. J. J. North.