SENTENCE ON BOOKMAKERS

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1934, Page 5

SENTENCE ON BOOKMAKERS

QUESTION ASKED IN HOUSE. POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Questions regarding bookmaking and the punishment of bookmakers were asked in the House of Representatives to-day by Mr. H. T. Armstrong (Lab., Christchurch East). Mr. Armstrong asked the Minister of Internal Affairs:— (1) Whether his attention had been called to the sentences of imprisonment imposed upon two Auckland bookmakers. (2) White not wishing to reflect upon the magistrate, who was only administering the law as he found it, whether, seeing that the bookmaker is a product of horse racing, that he was born to it and could be eliminated only by the elimination of horse racing altogether, the Minister would introduce legislation removing the absurdity of trying to make the business of bookmaking illegal, white legalising other and worse forms of racehorse gambling. (3) As all other civilised countries in the world legalise, control and tax the business of bookmaking, would the Minister bring New Zealand into line with other countries and remove the anomaly from the gaming laws. The Hon. J. A. Young replied that the first part of the question should be addressed to the Min ster of Justice and not to the Minister of Internal Affairs. Regarding the second and third parts, they were not so urgent that they should have been put in the form of a question without notice. It was a question of policy, and as such it would have every consideration by the Government.