A SOUND OPINION.
'At various times the Premier has said all sorts of tilings, about the totalisator, and more jthan once his recorded statements have been j such as would lead a stranger to believe that j he. disliked the machine and was waiting an j Opportunity to abolish it. Personally, I have ialways, thought, and said, that these hostile •remarks were not to be accepted as the considered belief of the Premier. Not that I jwould charge him with deliberately saying What he did not mean; but, when a Minister is peset ,with troublesome persons, one getting jat him in front, another from the rear, and a .third worrying him at the side, he may be forgiven if in his desire to get rid of his tortaentors he makes remarks which, forced from him under pressure, are of leas value than a thought-out opinion. I have always said that neither tha Premier nor, the Parliament .caa
abolish the to.talisator against the will of the people, and I still hold to that belief. At the same time I don't want the attempt made. It would be a disturbing influence until the country at large had declared its mind. It is therefore satisfactory to find the Premier declaring himself practically a supporter of the totalisator. Replying to a deputation from the Cold Tea Party last week, Mr Seddon made the significant remark that " he did not think it was possible to abolish the totalisator at present. If the machine were abolished it would probably mean a return to book betting and the undesirable features accompanying it." This is sound commonsense, and, since the utterance was made to a deputation of whose coming he must have been apprised, we may take it as a deliberately-formed opinion, representing truly the mind of the Premier, and intended, very likely, as a. correction of his remarks in the House, made hastily, off-hand, and in the heat of debate, when he said that he would bo willing to see the machine abolished. It is not well to put one's trust in princes nor in Premiers either — they are compelled to live to some extent on compromises. I have far more confidence in the wisdom of the public at large. At the same time it is pleasant to think that the Premier takes a practical view of the position and does not propose to make an attempt to sacrifice our co-opera-tive and socialistic system of betting and hand tbe Turf over to the tender mercies of a Betting Ring that has its legitimate use as an appendage of racing but must not be reinvested with the controlling power which was broken by Locsiiel.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW18980922.2.116.9
Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 36
Word Count
446A SOUND OPINION. Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 36
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