The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1911. TWO SERMONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 20, 18 July 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1911. TWO SERMONS.

On Sunday two highly esteemed local clergymen preached against gambling, inspired by references to Tattersall's system of gambling made in local papers. Precis of both sermons were printed yesterday, and it will be seen that both gentlemen were vigorous and well informed. The State by its Parliamentary enactments agrees to some extent with both speakers that gambling is bad and has reduced facilities. It cannot, however, by reducing the facilities kill the instinct. That is the whole point. It is not sufficient to say that gambling is evil (which we admit). It is necessary to show how to kill an evil which has existed since the dawn of history. You cannot close every known avenue for gambling until you get the whole of the people to morally discountenance it. As Mr. Liddcll showed, it is illegal to send money to Tattersall's. We have shown that the State is ' the medium, by the issue of negotiable paper, through which the New Zealand gambler helps to keep the system going. But the State has no means that can prevent New Zealanders sending money to Tasmania. It is not necessary for an "investor" to tell the money order clerk that he intends to send 5s or 10s or £1 to "Tatt's" or its agents, and, even supposing a clerk were given the power to refuse to issue orders payable to a Tattersall agent, there are several other ways of sending money. The only possible way to prevent New Zealanders from sending money to Tattersall's is to abolish Tattersall's. New Zealand has no power to do this. The system, therefore, is assured of New Zea. land support until either the great firm gives up business or until the public eschews gambling. Unhappily, no publi* men are able to suggest any means for the lessening of gambling except that of force. It is hopeless to tell people "You mustn't gamble." Our whole social, life is a gamble, and very many of out ordinary everyday business transactions arc gambles, pure and simple. Society does not discountenance gambling, and however much we may deplore it, there is but a faint hope that society intends to discountenance it in our day and generation. Unfortunately most attempts to reduce gambling facilities are met with determined opposition. That is to say. gamblers are not in the least cured of their tendency by the interference of the State or any other body or person. There is, indeed, a general outcry at the moment against the wiping out of various racing clubs in New Zealand. Nearly every racing club in New Zealand would put up its shutters if horses were raced for sport and could not form the subject of bets. Protests against the ingrained habits of a people are very often mere "heating the air." The man who wants to make New 'Zealanders really and truly hate gambling has a gigantic task before him. The State is absolutely powerless (even if it desired to do so) to prevent gambling and if it were a criminal offence to make a bet on a racecourse, either between friends, with the books or on the machine, the State's wires could be used (and. are used) to help gamblers who .may be a hundred miles away from a course. The question is not that gambling is wrong (this being agreed to), but how are you going to stop it? You've got to breed the gambling strain out of the people, and it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to do so. Manly sermons like those delivered by the Revs. Burton and Liddcll are useful, directing as they do the attention of the public to the evil, but they do not offer any solution of a tremendously difficult problem—and we certainly can't. j

CURRENT TOPICS. PRIVATE DETECTIVES. The other day a private detective came* under the lash of the magistrate's tongue for being the kind of fellow he | admitted being. Nothing need be said about this particular person, as he will probably drop out of the detective business. Each city in New Zealand (and we suppose some minor towns) have a number of loafers (generally men of bad character) who call themselves "private detectives." With exceptions they are mere blackmailing sneaks who live on the dirtiest of dirty work. You see the private detective in all his slimincss in the Divorce Court. He is the person who has been paid a fee to find incriminating evidence against the respondent. In many cases a judge has proved him a liar, and frequently judges have showed the greatest possible disgust for these wretched man whose mission in life is to make trouble. It is a common thing in a city detective office for the chief to be asked to recommend a private detective. His one question is, "You want a divorce?" But he can't "recommend" any private detective, because he knows most of them ought to be in gaol. These "private detectives" are generally profoundly stupid men, brutalised by their "profession." They arp the men who sneak about people's backyards and pry into windows and tell lies to the judge. They are the men who if they can't see any trouble make it to order. "Private detectives" separate man and wjfe, impose hardships on children, blackmail folk, rob them of their characters, perjure themselves in court, and otherwise behave in a slimy way. The "private detective," if he is allowed to exist (and there is no need for him) should be licensed. He should appear before a judge, a magistrate, or an inspector of police, and his antecedents and character be carefully examined before he is given a license, for which he ought to pay £IOO. At present he is a pest, hated by the proper police, and a great > danger to tho community. v

THE OLDEST COLONY. The Prime Minister., of Newfoundland, Sir Edward Morris, believes profoundly in the future of the oldest colony of the Empire. Soon after his arrival in London a few weeks ago he was sought out by a representative of the Daily Telegraph, - and he spoke earnestly and impressively of his country's promise. It has a groat coast-line, yet there is no part of the island that is more than fifty miles from the sea. A fish supply of untold magnitude awaits development, and the harvest of the sea alone should make Newfoundland wealthy. Its resources in timber and minerals are so great that Sir Edward expects British enterprise to seek in the island a new field for development. Like all the other dominions, Newfoundland requires population. There are only a quarter of a million people on an area not much smaller than that of the North Island of New Zealand, and as almost the whole of Newfoundland is habitable the Prime Minister believes that it would support at least five million people. Exceptional attractions are being held out to immigrants.. Sir Edward says that the settler can have free land for farming, and there is land from which he can take all the timber he requires for building his homestaad and for fuel. In the lakes, streams and rivers there is free fishing. Instead of farming a man may work at the fisheries in summer, and in winter he may go into the woods • and earn about four shillings a day and board and lodging. As the Government is endeavoring to develop the fisheries until they will supply almost the whole world the demand for labor is likely to be maintained. An Act of Parliament guarantees a return of 5 per cent, for fifteen years to any company that will embark on the enterprise of exporting fresh fish. There are large mineral deposits not yet developed, and the Prime Minister hopes that these soon will be helping to make the country prosperous. He says that Newfoundland has been handicapped by an "abominable libel" on its climate, which actually is very like that of England. Sir Edward Morris' visit to the Old Country should make the merits of the colony better known.

THE RAILWAY TIME-TABLE. The suggestion to. run the 7.20 a.m. train from Hawera to New Plymouth at an earlier hour has met with a cold reception in the southern towns, which, naturally enough, do not take kindly to a 0 a.m. train with its attendant discomforts when the present service suits them probably just as well. What would suit them better and achieve the same end is the speeding-up of the train. It seems absurd that in these days of progress a train should take three hours and a-half to do fortyeight miles, a rate of speed not equal to 15 miles an hour, about half the rate of the ordinary motor-car. There is no reason why trains should travel at this snail pace, except it is to waste the time of the travelling public or keep the railway employees fully occupied. But if this train is slow, what is to be said of the train that leaves Hawera at 11.10 \a.ni. and reaches New Plymouth «t 4.17 —5 hours 7 minutes to traverse 48 miles, a rate of locomotion that would almost shame a bullock-drawn dray! True, this train is more a goods train than a passenger one, but there seems hardly any excuse for its excessive slowness. The Department do not take kindly to putting another morning train on to .New Plymouth, but we are sure the .convenience of the public would be better served if this train (11.10 a.m. from Hawera or 6.40 a.m. from Wanganui) were made a passenger train only, and arranged to take the place of the train that leaves Hawera for New Plymouth at 4.3 p.m., reaching here at 7.28 p.m., just before the mail. Slow as the present 11.10 a.m. up train is, it is used to a considerable extent by the travelling public, and were it converted into n passenger train only, reaching here a little after two o'clock in the afternoon it would prove a very great convenience, and one, moreover, that could be obtained without any extra cost to the Railway Department. Delaying a goods train to reach here before eight o'clock would cause nn inconvenience arid would serve the purpose the present 4.3 p.m. train from Hawera serves in picking up passengen at the wayside stations for the mail train. Under existing arrangements, trains reach New Plymouth at 4.17, '5.30,' 7.28 and 7.55 p.m.—four trains one on top of the other, whilst in the morning we have but one, and that, as we have said before, arriving too late, viz., ]0.4;> r Surely it is not too much to expect the Department to speed up the latter, to substitute the goods tain for the passenger train in the way we have indicated, and to run an early morning' train from Stratford to New Plymouth on Saturdays.