THE GAMING AND LOTTERIES BILL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XV, Issue 832, 5 April 1882, Page 6

THE GAMING AND LOTTERIES BILL.

In defending the man Wilson, charged at Oamaru the other day with holding a half-crown, sweep, Mr O'Mea{{her is reported by the " North Otago Times " to have addressed to the Bench this fierce denunciation of the Act :— " When the bill was framed, the preamble stood precisely as it did now, and he did not think it was ever the intention of the legislature to go further than the intention foreshadowed by the preamble— namely the suppression of gaming and betting- houses, and the more "effectual abolition of lotteries. After the Bill came before Parliament there was a great deal of wrangling about various clauses of the Bill, though perhaps not so much as there should have been ; and the Bill had passed in a form which made a sweepstake, if it was only a penny or sixpence, a lottery within the meaning of the Act. If it was the intention of the Legislature to put a stop to little half-crown sweepstakes amongst a few friends on such occasions as the Oanuru races, all that he could say was that they had precious little to do with the time of the country. A more iniquitous Act, he thought, had not been passed since the days of Oalignla. Section 28 of the Act showed particularly how the liberty of the subject had been trampled upon, and the effect of this would be to give the police power to en'er any private house where a gentleman was' having a game of whiatf for sixpenny points with his .friends ; and there was no saying how far this power might be abnsed. Under sections 18 and 28, his Worship would observe,' the maximum penalties were enormous — £200 and £500 —and he submitted that it was a monstrous thing for such a power to be placed in the hands of any one man. The former was double the amount that could be inflicted for a breach of the revenue laws— an offence the most strictly dealt Avith. There was no Judge on the Bench in the British dominion who had such power as his Worship had under this Act. It was a most dangerous and oppressive Act, and ought to be administered with great care and caution.

Mr Robinson, R.M.— I agree with you entirely on that point, Mr O'Meagher. Mr O'Meagher could not understand how the Act ever passed, unless it was by members skulking out of the House, when the division came on, thus defrauding the people of their liberty by their wilful absence. The voice of the country, he maintained, had never been heard on the Act — the voice of the- country was either sneaking about in the lobbies, or else away from the House on the pretence of being ill. To show His Worship how the times were out of joiut with regard to this Act, he would allude to the fact that they had in this district a handsome endowment of a racecourse which has been Crown Granted to a trust for the purpose of encouraging racing and a good breed of horses. This intention was being frustrated by this Act, and the last racemeeting at Oamaru had been more like a prayer-meeting than a race-meeting. And yet the Government legalised betting by machinery, which he did not consider a bit more honest, if as much so, as harmless sweepstakes. The Act was clearly an infringement of the liberties of the subject, and one worthy of Nicholas the First of Russia, Melikoff, or Ignatieff. Liberty was the exercise of all their rights, natural and Political— rights secured to them and their posterity by a real representation of the people. The passing of the Act must fill the minds of all reasonable men with a fear of despotism that left no hope to the people of preserving themselves Und their children from chains, but in common confederacy for common safety. There should be a common confederation o£ the people o£ the Colony to have the Act repealed, and he hoped that during the next session it would be swept from the statute book of the country."