VICE OF GAMBLING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21530, 30 December 1931, Page 8

VICE OF GAMBLING

ORGY OF RACE MEETINGS CHURCH PAPER’S PROTEST A round condemnation of the vice of gambling is expressed in an editorial entitled “ Christ or Chance ” in the latest Church Gazette, published in Auckland. “As soon as ever the Christmas and New Year season comes round, Auckland finds herself in the midst of a perfect orgy of race meetings,” says the Gazette. “At least seven days will be devoted by thousands to this ‘ sport of kings.’ But this year we find ourselves already surrounded on all sides by innumerable lottery agents and peddlers of tickets in 1 art unions ’ for all sorts of objects. Already we observe signs of a growing disposition amon" our people to follow the example of Ireland and New South Wales and organise a State lottery in aid of our public hospitals. The old thread-bare excuses are trotted out once again; ‘The end justifies the means,’ ‘ No fair-minded person will deny him his little flutter,’ ‘There is no need to be strait-laced,’ ‘ Can’t a man do what he likes with bis own money?’ and so on and so forth; “ When a nation under its own chosen Government begins an organised exploitation of vice for financial profit in the sacred name of charity, it just shows bow utterly demoralising this particular vice can be. In Sydney citizens were afforded the spectacle of the huge barrel of the new State lottery being drawn through the streets by a team of white horses, and at the earliest opportunity enormous crowds flocked in frantic effort to worship this latest State idol, for such it really is, and be among the first to draw tickets in the gamble. Crowds waited week after week with the needful cash (5s 3d) for the purchase of a ticket. Did these crowds want to help the hospitals? If so, why not make a straight-out donation? They had the cash! “ The same applies to our cancer art unions and all other similar appeals. If the ‘ investor ’ is unwilling to make a donation of the cash he obviously has, then he is compelled to admit that he buys his ticket in the hope of being ‘ lucky ’ and winning the ‘ alluvial gold ’ or whatever it is he is promised. In other words, this is sheer selfish humbug. His sordid motive is stark selfishness, partaking in a scheme whereby the many are exploited for the benefit of the few. It shows an utterly false conception of life and life’s responsibility. It is ‘righteousness that exalteth a nation’ and nothing less. To say so is not puritanical wowserism, but simply hard, historical fact. A prophet like Isaiah who denounced those who ‘prepared a table for fortune’ was stating an inevitable consequence.” The writer goes on to denounce the raising of money for hospitals by lottery as “ bad economics, bad morals, and bad religion.”