FADING INTEREST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22612, 2 July 1935, Page 8

FADING INTEREST

In these days of rapid movement, when it seems necessary to coax the public appetite by constant variation of the diet, any device that maintains an unbroken and undirainished popularity illustrates a triumphant achievement. As moons wax and wane, so also do many objects of human conception and invention. A case in point is furnished in the’ shrinkage in the support that is now being given by the public to the art unions which are conducted in the Dominion by the gracious permission of the Minister of Internal Affairs. The profits from these expedients, now to be devoted entirely to the relief of distress, have seriously diminished. They are barely one-half of the amount that was realised not many months ago. They are considerably less than half the profit that was yielded by the first of these art unions. Evidently the public interest, stimulated by the hope, faint though it must always have been, of securing a handsome reward at the cost of a small expenditure, is not being sustained. Yet there is evidence that, despite the inhibitions imposed by the Government, despite the refusal to transmit correspondence directed to scores of addresses in the Commonwealth, there is a steady flow of money from the Dominion for the purchase of tickets in Australian sweepstakes or consultations. T'he prizes that are offered are, it would seem from occasional references to the matter, greater than are procurable in the Dominion, but the chances of success are very much smaller and the risk of complete loss is certainly greater. Even the appeal, whether with or without the connivance of the Government must be a matter of conjecture, that is made to persons with gambling instincts to keep their money within the Dominion instead of sending it abroad cannot have been very effectual. The attractiveness of the art union does not persist. The Government has, of course, never been quite honest about this playing upon the cupidity of the people. It professes to prohibit sweepstakes and consultations. But the art union which it blesses is not distinguishable from a sweepstake or consultation. To call it by the name which is bestowed upon it is to perpetuate a misnomer. It is not, however, to be suggested that those people who have been attracted by this socalled art union are at all concerned by reflections upon the morality of the action of the Government in this matter. They are simply growing tired of the business. The fascination which it exerted is losing its potency. They are looking for some fresh excitement.