PARLIAMENTARY PHARISEES.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 2321, 25 August 1898, Page 36

PARLIAMENTARY PHARISEES.

Every year our Parliament makes a prcteuca of ' diseursimr the gambling question. With the greatest regularity these discussions briii"- about a more or less serious proposal to abolish the totalisator. And the annual assumption of virtuous indignation consistently ends in smoke. Last week brou?li w about the revival of the old farce The immediate occasion was the commiutal ol Mr G Hutchison'? Restraint of Wagering Bui. This measure, by the way. met its doomkilled by those beautiful forms of tne House. It was, in fact, talked out. Nobody pretence to regret that result. Judging from the correspondents' reports of the debates, no one seriously expected the bill to go through. The only important feature oi the discussion was The" reference therein to the totalisator, and really I don't think that * hat was said on that svbicct was intended to be taken seriously. The Premier and the Hon. J. «t. Word both spoke against the machine, the Hoii R. J. Seddon going so far as to move to add words to the bill then in hand the adoption of which would mako totalisator investments illegal. But I doubt whether lie -vas in earnest. For one thing, the Premier docs not, 1 think, vicv. the totalisator person Uv with horror. If lam rightly mfoinwri, he has at odd timed put on a sove-rei-ni on Ins own account", and backed a winner or two at the 3'Vrbury. So it was said at the time, al any rate. Moreover, if the Premier conscientiously believed that the machine was a real evil, he would, I am persuaded, use his influence to bring a direct ispue before Parliament, e.nO he would do this, in all likelihood, in a straightforward way, not by means of side issues. 1 ''o v.o', however, dread any such attacks on the totalizator, nor an attack of any kind. The common sense of the Premier will &nve him Irom makir.o, such a mistake as to try to bring us back to the book-making system. If that defence is noi. rcirarded vs sufiicienf, supporters of the machine may fall back on the 'stronger one that the totalisator has the confidence of the people and is safeguarded by their sense of right and wrong. I for one foci corlam that no Premier and no Parliament ha<s the power to kill the totalirator. They may, perhaps, some day or other, knock it out for the time being, as was done in South Australia, but it a-v ill come back again stronger than ever. There was iust one remark mado during the debute jef cried to which poems to call for comment. The l'l-amioi- is reported to have feaid that the totalizator educated people to gtunlile. To this I would leply that the loading workers of iotalii-atois refuse to soil tickets to young perpons. I have spoken to Messrs Mason and Roberts on ihe subject, and have permission to state that so far as they are concerned their orders are not io serve children. Is not this the real, as opposed to the mock and hypocritical, attempt to restrain wagei lineJ