Pleasure and Duty.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue XVII, 22 October 1904, Page 21

Pleasure and Duty.

At the missionary meeting held in the Choral Hall, Auckland, last week. Bishop Neligan quoted some very striking figures for tha purpose of contrasting the sacrifices made by the general public for pleasure with those that they make for more serious and important objects. The Bishop's statistics are quite sufficiently impressive to prove his case without any exaggeration; so that we need not hestitate to point out that the figures he has given as to the totalizator investments are misleading. At the lust summer meeting of the Auckland Racing Club the gross amount put through the totalisator is officially given nt nearly i£70,000. Hut everybody knows that most of this money is turned over several times; and the most liberal estimate that we believe can be made for the total sum actually expended in this way is from £12,000 to £15,000. The Auckland Cup, we understand, usually attracts more investors than any other race here; in fact, we may reasonably infer that a majority of those, who back horses during the meeting put something into the ‘'machine” for the Cup. Ou last year's Cup the total investment was £5000; and this fact may serve to indicate that the figures quoted from the ‘'machine” returns for one day or for the whole meeting do not really represent the actual investment of move than 25 or 30 per cent, of the noiyinal total. However, admitting all this, as we have said, Bishop Neligan’s ease is sufficiently strong. It is undeniable that the four days’ racing at Ellerslie at the year's end costs the community for gambling alone far more than is paid to tlie Anglican clergy of the diocese for looking after the moral and spiritual interests of the community for a. whole year. Nor does the amount put through the totalisator represent anything like the total sum expended either by the public or the promoters of the sport. The prizes given by the Auckland Racing Club at the Summer meeting are worth over £9OOO. which is about eight times as much as the Auckland diocese gave for Home. Maori and Foreign Missions for the whole of last year. Nor did the Bishop confine his comparisons to one field of sport alone. The annual income of the Auckland Rugby Union, as Bishop Neligan showed, is far more than the Church expends on any one of its missions for the year. These facts are not calculated to impress us with any strong

sense of our devotion to the religious and philanthropic objects which Ihe work of the Christian Church in all its forms represents amongst us. No doubt the statistics of other religious bodies here would reveal the same startling contrast; and it reflects very little credit on the moral or intellectual condition of the community that it should bo so. Excessive devotion to pleasure is always calculated to demoralise either the individual or the society that it infects; and gambling more than any other vice speerlily corrodes away the fiab.ls of industy- and self-i'i-fiance, which are the only stable foundation for a strong and sane personal or national character. Ai to the totalisator, it is somewhat remarkable that people should persist in putting money time after time into the. “machine” with the certain knowledge that they lose 10 per cent, of it on each lx t, which means 50 or (50 per eent. of it' for tlie average gambler at every rare, meeting. But tire follies of gambling do not need any illustration from us; and we can only hope that Bishop Neligan’s vigorous denunciation «>( its evils may encourage the community to devote a little more energy to worthy objects and a little less time and money to pastimes which even when they do not demoralise should never be permitted to exclude nil the most important considerations in life.