FOOTBALL POOLS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23213, 6 December 1938, Page 9

FOOTBALL POOLS

CONTROVERSY IN ENGLAND BISHOP AROUSES PROTEST [fkom oun OWN COimKSPONDRNT J | LONDON, Nov. 10 By seeing no harm in a man allowing himself a weekly "flutter" for a stake he can afford without detriment, the Bishop of Liverpool, Dr. A. A. David, has drawn upon himself the condemnation of the Rural Dean of Salford, Canon Peter Green. Dr. David', addressing the Worcester Diocesan Conference, advocated that football pools be licensed and that a levy on stake money be used for the provision of playing fields and other social amenities. Canon Green said the Church's attitude toward hotting had been surrounded by a moral mist, but the words of the Bishop of Liverpool had changed it into a dense moral fog. "I cannot imagine anything moro deplorable than that the opinion expressed by the Bishop of Liverpool should go out as the opinion of the Church," ho added. Ho knew one youth who lost 37s in one week and whoso mother, a poor widow, had to pawn half the things in tho houso in consequence.

In a post office ho had scon a man out of work sending a postal order for 3s 6d to a pool, and a woman who always begged from him and whose children were permanently undernourished, sending one for 3s. "The truth is, as any probation officer will tell you, that in many cases children are under-nourished and wives go short. In addition, tho pools lead to continual attempts at fraud," said Canon Green.

"Some years ago tho Bishop of Liverpool used tho argument that it would not be considered wrong, as many excellent people did it without any sense of doing wrong. I could have wept. It is a really dreadful tiling that a man in the bishop's position should talk on moral questions and neglect tho first element m moral teaching." Canon Green moved a resolution which condemned football pools as "mischievous both to tho community and tho individual," ami ho expressed tho hope that the Government would take action against them bv way of prohibition or restrictions. lie called on church people to help to "rid tho community of this menace." Tho resolution was carried.