GAMBLING IN NEW ZEALAND

Colonist, Volume L, Issue 12165, 13 February 1908, Page 3

GAMBLING IN NEW ZEALAND

Wellington,' February 1?.

Mr Fowlds, Minister of Education, delivered an address yesterday to the Congregational Union on gambling, declaring that the evil was as widely spread 'n the Dominion as in other countries. He said that from 1892 to 1907 the totalisator investments had . increased from £506,078 to ■£1,837,095, while in the same period racing permits had been reduced from 234 to 139. Anyone, he said, who gave attention to the subject must admit that gambling was a canker responsible for more degrada tion, -misery, and crime than any other evil we had in our midsf. He went on to say that they were sometimes told that all business was gambling— that farming was gambling; but talk like that was the veriest twaddle. The very worst form of gambling,. .to h»s mind, was that. whioh was being indulged in with regard to land speculations.