REVENUE IS ASSISTED

NZ Truth, Issue 1274, 1 May 1930, Page 9

REVENUE IS ASSISTED

Like The Ducks To-day Bookmakers Have Been On The Wing

SEVERAL CAUGHT, MANY MISSED

The unofficial racing, world, the section that cannot get to meetings, has been somewhat upset the last ten days.

THE duck shooting season opens toA , day, tout the ducks will have nothing on. 'the bookmakers. For the past week the layers have been, on the wing. ' The Police Department has taken a new lease of life, and they are giving the illegal calling a bit of hurry-up. In all parts of the country there has been activity, but there is no peal reason for officials to skite about the bag. Quite a number have been picked up and some very healthy contributions have been made to the; Consolidated Fund, but after all said and done who have they caught? i In the majority of instances the rag tags. The small fish have been netted, but the man-size tommies have found a- hole m the net, and escaped. These periodic sorties toy the police .are distinctly humorous to those who see racing every day m the year. To this section the arrests and fines are nothing more or less than a gesture on the part of the department— we're catching these bookmakers and making them pay. Yes, the police are catching them,.

but m most instances it is an agent, not the bookmaker, or .principal, who has to toe the line. • The big layer goes on on the even tenor of his way, unmolested. It may be that the police are of the opinion that the "calling" is over- i crowded, and that a few arrests and heavy poultice.s will make a hole m the ranks. But why should one be made fish and the other flesh ?_ When High Commissioner Tom Wilford took over the office of Minister of Justice he was going to make a great clean-up of the 'books, but after one or two sorties thete was a calm again. ' . » Now with a new Minister there is a further outbreak. There is no equity in -the clean-ups. One instance: A bookmaker, ;toho frequented a certain hotel m Wellington, had a row with those running the hotel and he went elsewhere. A new layer took his pla,ce, but he had no sooner started than he was picked up. Why the differentiation? One had a fair go, the other just opened his book.