BIG RAFFLES

Southland Times, Issue 19898, 17 June 1926, Page 7

BIG RAFFLES

LINE TO BE DRAWN CABINET’S DECISION LICENSES PROMISED UNAFFECTED. (From Our Special Reporter.) Wellington, June 16. The Government has decided not to grant, in future, applications for licenses to conduct raffles in which mineral specimens form the prizes, and to introduce legislation amending in that direction the Gaming Act. The edict is not to apply in cases in which licenses have already been produced, provided the conditions of the Act are complied with. The decision of the Government will not affect small art unions in which works of art, paintings, drawing and sculpture are the prizes offered. “The decision, as I have indicated,” said the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. R. F. Bollard) to-day, “will not affect small raffles for works of art; for instance, paintings, drawings, sculpture and so on, to raise money for desirable objects so long as the Act is complied with. Many of the latter are held to benefit charitable bodies doing splendid philanthropic work in the community. Almost daily I receive applications for that class of raffle, some coming from returned soldiers of an artistic bent who are in needy circumstances through disabilities from war services. In many of these raffles the prize value is as low as £2O. Others come from church bodies and generally all are for pictures or similar artistic handiwork.” Mr Bollard had something to say about the complaints he had received respecting the methods, employed by the promoters of one or two art unions for big prizes in mineral specimens that had been held in the Dominion. “The promoters of these art unions,” he said, “in submitting their applications, had in every way filled the conditions laid down by the Gaming Act and I had no option under the authority given but to grant them. It was not until after the art unions proceeded that complaints began to reach me, mainly about the almost wholesale broadcasting of tickets. Many of the books of tickets were sent to persons who were totally opposed to such form of raising money for the objects in view, and naturally these persons raised a storm of objection. Some complaints stated they knew of instances in which unscrupulous persons receiving the books of tickets had sold them, and pocketing the proceeds from the sale had destroyed the butts of the tickets. Thus the persons purchasing them would not actually be in the drawing of the art union. For those reasons I stopped the broadcasting of tickets some time ago, but some of the promoters did not wholly heed the restrictions. There also come into the art unions the professional promoter and the flotation expenses reached some thousands of pounds. There was one case some time ago where an art union in New Zealand had raised £32,000 and it cost to raise that sum £16,000. These are some of the reasons which actuated Cabinet in deciding to restrict art unions to works of art.” The amendment of the Gaming Act dealing with raffles will be a simple provision. Sub-section (1) of .section 42 of the Act provides:— “If any person, being the owner of any painting, drawing, sculpture or other work of art or literature or mineral specimens or mechanical models, applies to the Minister of Internal Affairs for permission to dispose of the same by raffle or chance, the said Minister may, if he thinks fit, grant a license for that purpose, subject to such conditions and restrictions as he thinks right to impose.” The Minister said the amendment would be to delete the words “mineral specimens.” Mr Bollard added that the decision come to by the Government would take effect immediately and that only in those cases in which a definite promise had been made and the conditions complied with would licenses be granted.