The Star. SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1921. TOTALIZATOR PERMITS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16497, 6 August 1921, Page 8

The Star. SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1921. TOTALIZATOR PERMITS.

The statement made by the Minister of Internal Affairs in connection with the Racing Commission’s recommendations does not ring convincingly Ever since the report was published there have been howls of protest from districts and clubs which had received hostile notice from the Commission. These protests were largely inspired by purely parochial considerations, and not by any desire for the welfare of racing or to serve the ends of justice and equity. Air Downie Stewart states that he received appeals from all the Auckland members requesting him not to act on the report until Parliament had had the opportunity of considering it. Members of Parliament, of all shades of political opinion, from the Speaker downwards, have bombarded tl?e liarrassed Minister with requests to hold up the operation of a report which everybody expected to operate? from the beginning of the new racing season. Tho Minister would probably have received more credit, and done a wiser thing, if he had stuck to the Commission, and challenged Parliament to do its worst when the members assembled in September. Tho position which he intends to establish is that nothing will be done to act on the report until Parliament has had an opportunity of rejecting it. In the meantime, permits will be issued as in the season ju6t closed, and the necessary adjustments wiil be made later on. The Minister, by succumbing to the pressure which has been applied to him, has seriously endangered t*ho Commission’s report, which was at least the result of a considered and judicial review of the situation. The consequences of delay in settling tho question may be of the most serious character. It is quite possible that a temporary alliance may be made between racing members who are opposed to the Commission’s findings and non-rac-ing members, who are strongly antitotalisator, in order to secure the rejection of the report. The racing members will oppose it for local reasons, and the non-racing members will oppose it because they are against the totalisator in any case, and are opposed to any increase in permits. The Commission recommended an increase of twenty-eight days of racing, the majority of which it proposed should go to country clubs. These extra days may easily be lost if the wholo question is thrashed out on the floor of the House. A possible contingency which tho Minister has apparently overlooked is that the report may be referred back to the Commission with an instruction not to increase tho number of permits, but to give due consideration to the claims of country clubs. Such a course would give a very serious set bac‘? to racing in New Zealand, but it would at least achieve the much-desired result of substantially reducing the volume of betting. It is possible, then, that the members of the House who have allowed themselves to bo used in furthering parochial agitations against the extinction or reduction of permits will find their last case than their first. The Commission may h£ required to make a further raid on the city and suburban clubs in order to provide permits for country districts, and it may be taken for granted that those clubs which were dealt with in the original report wall not escape less lightly in the second. The Minister, by deferring the operation of the report, has opened a door to intrigue which he may before long sincerely wish he had kept locked.