The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. MONDAY, MARCH 16, 1931. THE FRIENDLESS “BOOKIE.”

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 63, 16 March 1931, Page 6

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd.

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 1931. THE FRIENDLESS “BOOKIE.”

Gloucester Street and Cathedral Squaro CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND.

' | 'HE corrupting influence of the licensed bookmaker is too stern a reality and too recent a memory to make him welcome in the ranks of decent racing people, apart altogether from the offence to public morals that is implied in the licensing of a racing parasite. Other countries, realising this fact, are moving away from th 6 bookmaker to the totalisator, England and Australia being notable examples. It is hardly necessary in the present healthy state of public opinion to take Mr H. T. Armstrong’s Bill on the subject seriously, the more so as it seems to reduce the tax on betting from the 174 per cent deducted by the totalisator to an elusive 5 per cent to be paid by bookmakers and their clients. It is difficult to believe that a Bill which would spell ruination for clubs that are already hard pushed in the matter of finance has the support of “ prominent racing people.” It is doubtful, indeed, if the bookmakers themselves could have drafted a more favourable Bill from their own point of view’.

BATHS TOO COLD

'TTCTHAT should be the normal ” ~ heat of a swimming bath if it is to be useful not as a sudden cold plunge, but as a medium in which to swim under comfortable conditions? The answer would be something about 75 degrees, which is a different thing from the 54 to 58 degrees of the artesian baths of the City. Miss Gleitze found 77 degrees too cold for slow movement, and had to have the temperature of the tepid baths raised to 88 degrees. That is much too high for normal conditions, but 58 is at the other extreme, and the swimming clubs should agitate for the heating of all the outdoor artesian baths in Christchurch.

BOYCOTT THREATS.

* I ''HE Alliance of Labour shows its hearty contempt for constitutional methods •when it declares that if Parliament legislates for a reduction in wages the trades unions should organise a national boycott of those who reduce wages or “ support or act with the Government ” in the matter. Such a policy could not be enforced, but if it could, it would lead to industrial and economic chaos, and the leaders of the Alliance know it. For the workers to enforce a “ compulsory 15 per cent reduction in rentals and mortgages,” and having boycotted all the suppliers of the necessaries of life who do not maintain the present wage standards, to then deduct 10 per cent from the bills of the remainder, is the’ sort of thing that might happen in Russia, but not in New Zealand. The whole programme, in fact, is wild and impracticable. It is based on a stupid adherence to the belief that the present nominal wage standards must be inviolable. It ignores the fact that the alternative to rationing or wage reduction in many businesses is wholesale dismissals, and that this is the very thing that tile Government is trying to avoid. TWO MORALS.

AN EDITORIAL WRITER in Community Planning,” the organ of the Town Planning Association, has found some difficulty in sitting on the rail regarding the Cathedral Square judgment, for he has fallen off on the side of the vandals in the following summing

up:— The moral of the case, to be deduced by those who believe above all things in maintaining the integrity of reserves (“ergo tua rura manebunt ” was the official motto of provincial Canterbury), is that it is a dangerous thing for a reserve or the control thereof, to be vested in a local body which also controls streets and other public \itilities, for whose various services odd bits of land are likely to come in handy. An alternative moral, for adoption by those who believe in simplicity and elasticity of local government, is that it is a costly practice, and highly inexpedient, for the local public, through their elected representatives, to be hampered by the notions of mid-Victorian legislators in applying public lands to those public purposes for which, for the time being, they appear to be most suitable. This shows a too pathetic faith in the judgment of the “ elected representatives ” of the city from age to age. Does the writer know how many reserves have been alienated in Christchurch, and is he aware that at one time the best use that some of the people’s representatives could think of for Victoria Square—then a public pound—was its sale for building sites?