RAFFLES AND ART UNIONS

Southland Times, Issue 17482, 24 July 1915, Page 6

RAFFLES AND ART UNIONS

MINISTERS’ ASSOCIATION’S PROTEST. . (Special to the Times.) CHRISTCHURCH, July 23. A deputation from the Christchurch Ministers’ Association waited -on the Mayor (Mr H. Holland) to-day to enter a protest against the promotion of lotteries and art unions of a certain character for the purpose of augmenting patriotic funds. One of the principal" speakers was the Rev. J. .1. North. “I want to say plainly," Mr North said, "that Sir Francis Bell has acted as dictator of the country. To some extent he is an administrator, and he lias apparently told the police people that they are not to prosecute for breaches of the Gaming Act in different centres of Dunedin, Wellington and the Wairarapa. The law has been openly and boldly violated in regard to art unions and lotteries. We are here to say that the action of Sir Francis Bell .is the action of a dictator and not that of a responsible politician. We have a right to expect that the law shall be respected, at any rate, within our boundaries.” Continuing, he said that it was desired to emphasise the very bad effect this violation of the law would have on the community. As far as the people of New Zealand were concerned they were, in adopting lotteries as a means of raising funds for patriotic purposes, acting in the teeth of the past enterprise of the Old Country, where the laws against lotteries were passed consequent on the poverty that followed the Napoleonic wars, lotteries having increased that poverty and deteriorated the manhood of the nation. For New Zealand to fly in the teeth of that experience seemed to them to be a false and weak step. They believed that the Germans could not be better assisted than by encouraging the people of New Zealand to gamble. It was an ancient grip of Machiavelli’s that a good way to defeat an enemy was to teach its people to gamble. The proposal to gamble on a large scale would inoculate a very large section of the community at present uncontaminated by the gambling instinct. They desired Mr Holland, as Chief Magistrate of the city, to discover if the country is going to tolerate the dictatorship of Sir Francis Bell, and the supineness of the Police Department, or if the law as to art unions and lotteries is to be enforced. I The Rev. J. Paterson said that Great I Britain and her Allies were fighting | Germany because that country looked upon international agreements as ‘‘Scraps of paper.” In New Zealand they were using the laws the same way. It seemed to him a piece of extraordinary short-sightnoss to allow one law to be simply flouted and ignored on the excuse that the action was in the interests of patriotic purposes—an excuse that was put forward as an end that justified the means. In parallel cases was a man justified in embezzling his employer's money on the pretent that be intended, to devote it to patriotic purposes; and was a burglar justified in robbing a bouse on the same plea? “If the patriots Of this country,” Mr Paterson continued, “are not prepared to make a real sacrifice, then a very, very serious state of affairs exists. Personally, t think it is an insult to the patriotic, people of New Zealand to make out that the only way hy which a large amount of money can be raised is by appealing to the gambling instincts of the country.” In his reply, Mr PTolland said tne matter placed before him by the deputation, he was sorry to say, was quite out of ills control. The Municipal Corporations Act gave him no power excepting the exercising of his personal influence. The matter was one for the police, and all he could do was to lay the representations of the deputation before the Superintendent of Police and see what could be done. As much as he desired to see the patriotic fund strengthened, he would be sorry if it could not be done without recourse to raffles: but he believed such recourse was not necessary. He undertook to see the Superintendent of Police on the malter. Mr North asked if the Mayor would discover from the Commissioner of Police or the Superintendent, if Pit Francis Bell had given specific instructions that the police are to withhold their hand. It would interest the community to know if Rir Francis Bell had taken upon himself the role of dictator and had abrogated the law on his own authority. The Mayor made a note of the request.