The N.Z. Times WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1907. THE BOOKMAKER AND THE RACING CLUBS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6383, 4 December 1907, Page 6

The N.Z. Times

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1907. THE BOOKMAKER AND THE RACING CLUBS.

irrra which i« incorpobatep this •* wnuaxaioji aomiOBRT," BSTIBLIBHSD IB4S,

The bookmakers are seeking justice from the Government. For what were deemed to be good and sufficient reasons, Parliament, during the recent scission, gave the bookmaker a legal status. By common consent the time had arrived when a determined effort should be made to put down the more flagrant of the evils attendant upon hotting, and especially those which have preyed upon the youth of the community, it was felt, however, that the reforming spirit must proceed with oircumspootion. The gambling propensity of the people is inherent in a degree, and it has been very sedulously cultivated for many generations. An attempt to eradicate it by one Act of Parliament would be not only foolish and vain itself, but might produce effects directly the opposite of those which the reformers were seeking to obtain. It would produce a reaction; or rather, and the fact cannot be too well known, it would be a movement in advance of popular sentiment. The public has not yet given Parliament a mandate to make gambling illegal, though it has freely expressed a desire to see it regulated with a fair amount of rigour. The Gaming and Lotteries Act of last session has been described as a compromise, but it would be more correct to say tfiat it represents the high-water mark of public opinion in the aggregate upon the subject at tho present time. It makes terms with betting by restricting the operation to its natural, not to say legitimate, theatre, tho racecourse, and sots its heel upon those agencies by means of which wagering has infested every street in tho towns. The Act, while it takes account of morality in a practical way, is based upon expediency. It legalises a little of what the advanced conscience declares to be evil in order to suppress a great deal of what every sort of decent conscience recognises as bad. From tho ethical point of view, there is nothing to olioose between tho bookmaker and the totalisator, and Parliament, by putting both institutions upon tho same level, has given to the gambling laws, what they certainly lacked before, namely, a logical basis. This seems to have been admitted by those who, on principle, are opposed to every form of betting; but, curiously enough, it makes no appeal to the reasoning faculties of the racing clubs. The clubs are neither moral not logical; they are simply practical, and in tnoir eyes tile bookmaker, by competing, with the totalisator, threatens to rob them of a certain amount of revenue. So far as they can do it, they intend, apparently, to make the new law inoperative—that is to say, they will put every obstacle in the way of the bookmaker. The Foilding olnfa has opened the campaign ; the Woodville club is preparing to join forces; and the bookmakers, as already mentioned, have gone to the Government for relief. A numerous deputation of the fraternity waited upon the Attorney-General yesterday, and a full report of .the proceedings at the interview will be found in another part of to-day’s “Times.” Dr Findlay dealt very frankly and explicitly with those phases of the question not subject to modification by, the results of inquiry. He pointed out very clearly what tho State requires from the bookmaker and the racing club, and the course he laid down is that which will have to bo followed until the time arrives for public opinion to again express itself in legislation. What is expected of the bookmakers is ihat they shall strictly carry out the law by abstaining from those forms of betting which tho Act of this year makes illegal; what the clubs are under an obligation to perform—and the obligation is greater in their case, since the penalties attached to it are by comparison small—is to help Parliament and the Government to purify sport and minimise the evils of gambling. If they decide to run counter to the spirit of tho Act while keeping its letter, they will be driving the malady inwards. The law gives them the power to. pub a substantial tax upon bookmakers, but it was never intended that they should make the fact of licensing a farce, by hampering it with such conditions as render it virtually impossible. If the bookmaker is to be recognised, and the law lays it down that he is to rank with the tetalisator, them he must be granted opportunities for conducting operations approximating to those which are enjoyed by the machine. Less than this will be not only unfair to the bookmakers, but disloyal to tho State, which is consciously ' and deliberately using tho bookmakers in their new and legalised capacity to extirpate the lower forms of gambling.