RACING AND WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9618, 26 March 1917, Page 7

RACING AND WAR

CONTINUANCE DEPLORED ■■INSULT TO BRAVE MEN.” SAYS BISHOP JULIUS. ;I I regard every race meeting held at this time as a direct public insult to the brave men who ate fighting at the front for the Empire and for us.” This statement was the central feature of a brief interview that a Christchurch “Sun” reporter had on Saturday with His Lordship Bishop Julius, concerning Sir George Clifford’s manifesto in defence of racing as usual in war time. His Lordship made it plain that he had not yet had an opportunity of thoroughly examining the apparently carefully-prepared statement of the president of the Racing Conference. The view he was expressing was a general one, not based on Sir George Clifford's statement.

Wo had allowed racing and betting and gambling to grow to tremendous proportions in peace time, His Lordship continued, and we had permitted to become attached to it most undesirable elements. Yet he was not to be interpretea as condemning racing or oven betting wholly and absolutely, as it was the expression of an instinct" in imman nature that it would bo dangerous to suppress entirely. He was not one of those to be always condemning everything. Still, this thing had attained to suoh terrible proportions that he had been informed that even in war time the amount of betting and gambling bad greatly increased. We were, as a nation, encouraging it by taking a percentage of the proceeds. While brave men were fighting for us at the front and making tremendous sacrifices it was most insulting to them, and disgusting in itself, that there should be so much racing and betting and So many useless, puffy-faced people about who apparently dicT nothing eke and thought of nothing else but racing, gambling and betting. Though not prohibited altogether, racing and betting ought at this time to be severely repressed, and the number of race meetings greatly reduced. ,

WILJUL OR IGNORANT? MR ISITT ON THE MANIFESTO. Mr L. M. Isitt, M.P., expressed himself as follows, concerning Sir George Clifford’s defence of racing as usual: — “First of all Sir George Clifford’s racing manifesto impressed me as that of a special pleader and not of a man prepared to take a responsible and national ■ view of the position. There is not the faintest recognition of the serious fact that the gambling fever in New Zealand is on the increase to such an extent as to menace both our moral and material welfare. One would think that th© most extreme racing enthusiast would deprecate a .rise in totalisator investments of from £1,900,000 in 1911 to over five'millions in 1917. Sir George Clifford rejoices over the increased revenue that this recklessness brings to the racing clubs and the Government. Is this ignorance ort wilful disregard of the Empire’s goodJjn the interest of this very questionable sport? For any educated man to ignore the fact that, in a moment of dire struggle for the very existence of the Empire, no population of a million people can righteously devote such a proportionately huge sum to gambling is surely evidence that that matt is not capable of taking a patriotic view of the question. Now I come to Sir George Clifford’s main defence, and a more fatuous defence no . racing expert could possibly have ventured upon'.* That we are not at this time of crisis to interfere with racing because if we do we- shall imperil the breeding of British cavalry horses 1 Two months ago I was travelling on a Christchurch tramcar with a gentleman who loves racing. He started a conversation upon the subject, and said he would not go on a racecourse as long as the war lasted, and expressed his strong conviction that racing should be restricted during the period of the war, and then proceeded to ridicule this very contention of Sir G. Clifford’s. He said that the whole trend of modern short distance racing was in the direction of impairing and not improving our horses for practical purposes. But here is the point: He told me that when his son went away with one of the earlier contingents, he .made up his mind ho would give the boy th© best cavalry horse ho could get. He communicated with a leading racing man in this Dominion. He said: ‘Now, you travel a good'deal and see all the best of the horses. I want you to pick me up a good thoroughbred for my boy,’ and the reply was ‘Don’t touch them- Go to some station-holder. Look round and pick him up a good, reliable horse there that leaves the races alone.’ - Let Sir George Clifford go back to the Royal Commission on this very question held in Britain years ago. He will find all the evidence in the Parliamentary Library, and can digest the opinion given by some of the experts there as to whether racing was improving the British cavalry horse, and he ought to know that in those days there were far fewer of the long-legged, herringgutted, arsenic-inspired weeds scampering for big prizes over short distances that figure at our main race meetings to-day. Sir George talks of the Australians’ recognition of the wonderful improvement and beneficial influence of New Zealand racing. Will Sir George kindly give your readers the name of a dozen New Zealand horses that, during the past twelve years, have won as youngsters in our big races, or that have done anything since to impress men with the fact that racing is producing the bone, strength, and stamina that we require for material and national service? One could go on for a week pointing out th© weaknesses of this special . plea, but, personally, I should be prepared to leave Sir George Clifford in the hands of his own racing confreres, so sure am I that scores of them will condemn his utterances quite as strongly as men who are not interested in this sport.”