SPIRIT OF CHANCE

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1930, Page 6

SPIRIT OF CHANCE

AGE CANNOT WITHER IT.

.AUSTRALIAN EXAMPLES.

Although a country has been known to drink a Budget deficit (per medium of beer and spirit taxes), and although a country may yet be asked to ride away from its troubles (per medium of motor taxation), neither of these ideas excites more contention than the pioposal to gamble deficits away in State lotteries.

Mr. Beckett, of Victoria, is tliereforc a venturesome man. He is Minister oi Health in the Labour Government there, and he recently went north on a health trip, and had tho temerity to, announce that, while in Queensland, he proposed ta investigate for his own information the operation of the Golden Casket Art Union, conducted by the Queensland Government. “This organisation had had a most beneficial effect in obtaining money for Queensland hospitals.”

Mr. Beckett also said that he was not conducting the investigation on behalf of the Ministry, but ho considered that the information might prove useful as a last resort in dealing with Victorian hospital finance.

The Argus promptly- opened fire with the following; “Every argument against any device which would encourage gambling is doubly powerful at a time' when the first duty of Government is to practise and foster thrift, public and personal. Th© introduction of a Government lottery in the prevailing circumstances of Victoria would not only work the obvious mischief of depriving the people of a proportion of their earnings; it would also do the incalculable damage of nurturing a spirit of irresponsibility which would inevitably . impede a return to prosperity. But the mischief would not bo restricted to any one period. The lottery would be a permanent institution, and its baneful influence would grow from strength to strength. That has been . the experience wherever legalised gambling has been given a footing.” From another 'and perhaps still more interesting angle the gambling spirit has recently been laid bare to the Australian, public. Betting by inmates qf relief institutions' is apparently considerable, for “the subject has beep raised by th© request of authorities' ’of ' Old Men’s' Homes and kindred institutions that; broadcast results of ' racing should bo cut off from the inmates, who ’have their bit on’ each event. They receive (adds the ■ writer) slender allowances from the institutions, and some risk all \ of them on a race, They derive pleasure from betting, however, and they have none from any -other source, so it seems to some people to be a hardship that they should be deprived of it, more es-. pecially as 90 per cent, of their fellow citizens outside the institutions gamble as they please.” It is added that in New South Wales the Minister under whom such institutions administratively fall does not favour curtailment of the inmates’ betting broadcast privileges, “but the nature of the representations made to him by the authorities, required a trial of their recommendations, and this is now proceeding. The old men no longer listen to the voice droning out, “The horses are now coining; out. Big Boy, who won at Rose Hili' last week, looks fine. Minnie, should run well to-day, as.the mud suits her/ and so forth, ‘They will obtain the results, nevertheless, and will continue to ‘have their bit on,’ deriving as much pleasure as any man who gqcs highhatted and beglovetl to Rand wick smoking an expensive- cigar.” From Sydney pass to Melbourne, and there you will find a newspaper correspondent making an impassioned. appeal (incidental to a general criticism of broadcast programmes) for broadcast sport for invalids: “Recently a listener wished to dispense with racing descriptions and sporting results. To those living in the metropolitan area these may not appeal, but by a very large section of listeners living in the country or outer suburbs they me eagerly await- 1 ed. All listeners living far back, who’ have no telephone, and who cannot get an evening paper, have a right to expect all news, general as well as sporting, to be conveyed to them. In the present; programmes all are catered for. Many ?.n aged and bed-ridden listener enjoys ■the travel and literary talks, and who would deprive the helpless' soldiers' in the' Caulfield Hospital of racing, foot-' ball, cricket and •descriptions of athletic i sports s”