SPORTING REVIEW . . AND . . LICENSED VICTUALLERS' GAZETTE. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Thursday, August 1, 1895.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VI, Issue 262, 1 August 1895, Page 4

SPORTING REVIEW . . AND . . LICENSED VICTUALLERS' GAZETTE. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Thursday, August 1, 1895.

The past week has been productive of several important parliamentary developments which can only he read in one light. We cannot disguise the fact that the totalisator, an invention that has brought financial health to many a struggling racing organisation and purity to the sport of racing, is being venomously attacked by a set of intolerant bigots whose knowledge of the matter they have taken in hand is as puny as is their conception of fair play. And that is saying a lot. Last session the Parliamentarians wrestled with the subject of betting, and after much talk they arrived at the conclusion that New Zea’anders race to an improper extent. It was decided to curtail the number of totalisator permits, and the Racing Conference, in accordance with the new G-aming Act, provided that from to-day the number of legitimate race meetings should be two thirds less than was the case in season 1892-93. That reduction was a healthy move, for there is little doubt that racing in the past has been carried to excess. But now our parliamentary friends are forsaking the path of healthy reform for the one trodden by bigots whose brains are choked with faddist fungus, to the exclusion of any conception of the virtues of moderation. Extremists never do any good for themselves or anybody else, and we are thankful that, as a rule, they sink back into the obscurity from which they should never have arisen. They generally arouse the opposition of their auditors by fanatical lopsided mouthings, and the beginning of that natural opposition will soon come to pass, thanks to the farcical measures that are being carried into the House by the Extremists. There are two legislative luminaries in our House of Representatives who have purchased moral spectacles of a certain strength, and they now ask the people of New Zealand, whose eyesight is not affected by so many unhealthy motes, to fix the aforesaid specs, on their noses and see with the eyes of men like Mr W. Hutchison of Dunedin, a gentleman whose mission in life appears to force his particular fads down every throat in the country. Twelve months ago Parliament agreed that the Turf would be reformed if certain branches of the Racing Tree were lopped off. . That pruning takes effect from to-day. and instead of the Legis.

lature being allowed to wait the result of the Reform about to be given effect to, it is being requested by a few of its morbid, Cold Tea members to stultify its decision of a year ago and cast the machine into the outer darkness. The argument of the anti-totalisator fiend has not grown more lucid than it was twelve months back. It is the same old intolerant shriek unsupported by argument or decency. Years ago the Turf was covered with excrescences and the Totalisator came along and not only made clean the national pastime but gave to the country a revenue which in olden time sank into the pockets of the few. Now, the virtuous Mr Carnell calls for a return of the old order of things, while Mr Hutchison goes the whole animal and shrieks for the abolition of the racing tree with its many branches of employment. The desire and blindness of the anarchist have entered into this gentleman who sends forth a puny howl for the destruction of New Zealand’s training and breeding establishments, her many racing grounds, and the turning loose of the hundreds of employes connected with such establishments in order that they may join the unemployed and bless for ever the name of Hutchison. However, it would be a waste of time to take this pearl of legislative ability seriously. Like a. child crying for the moon Mr Hutchison is wailing for the impossible, for his demands are absurd unless the people of New Zealand are suffering from brain rot and have forgotten there is such a thing as liberty of the subject. The very force of the man’s fury will strangle his chance of success so he can be left to his inane bigoted wailing.

In the case of Mr Carnell, the House appeared to allow its judgment to be caught napping. According to the telegrams received from Wellington this gentleman’s measure for the abolition of the machine has been introduced in the House on a division of 40 to 19. This result appears to give the Napier M.H.R. a working majority — but were all the forty voters honest in their declaration against the machine ? And will they be found voting with Mr Carnell when his measure comes up for serious debate ? We take leave to doubt the" sincerity of the division that has brought such joy to the Napier statesman. We were of the opinion that the arguments f<>r and against the machine were sufficiently well-known to enable our representatives to give a different reply to Mr Carnell’s motion, and until they speak plainly we will not believe that sensible men of the world are allowing one or two brazen throated extremists to entice them into regarding matters with the one eyed gaze peculiar to faddists. The people opposed to the machine seem to forget one thing, that so long as New Zealanders retain traces of their Anglo Saxon descent the love of racing will exist in them and demand expression. Eor three hundred years Englishmen have practised the sport of racing, and the desire for its continuance has been increasing in power with the passage of every year. The roots of the racing tree are of exceeding strength, and it is just probable that even the power of a Carnell or a Hutchison will be found unequal to the task of pulling them from the affections of the people. Accepting the fact that racing will continue in the land is it not better to place a check upon it which besides purifying the sport will give material financial aid to its supporters and the country. Mr Carnell may wish, line Mr Hutchison, to take up the position of a destroying angel, but we are prepared to credit him with the possession of sufficient sense to know that such a role is not obtainable so long as the people retain a portion of the brain power the Creator has endowed them with. What then does the member for Napier want? He is returned by people who are intimately acquainted with racing. Is it that his constituents object to the totalisator and desire the return of the Ring system of betting ? The answer of the Napier people will doubtless he given in no uncertain voice when Mr Carnell again appears at the hustings. The only people whose interests call for the abolition of the machine are a few large owners and the Ringmen, and one would think that .the strenuous opposition of the latter is sufficient proof that they cannot supply the wants of the public at the figure charged by the machine. However, apart

from the prices given by the human and mechanical bettors there is the unanswerable argument that the latter gives support to genuine racing and spells large stakes and cheap sport for the owner who is thus rendered independent of the very thing the Extremists wish to banish —betting. Let our stakes continue to grow under the shelter of the machine and the day is not far distant when an owner will have no reason to bet in order to race. A.nd surely we all know that the more non-betting owners there are, the better it will be for true Sport. Further, the very fact of the machine offering long outside returns induces owners to send their animals out to win, and an increase in the number of “ triers ” is indeed a reform contrasted with the state of things we were used to in the long ago, when horses performed the apparently impossible feat of getting inside leather bags, to the discomfiture and loss of the people.

We would ask the Parliamentarians to remember this. The past year has shown, in Australia, England, and America that racing and betting cannot be stopped. The former will be the sport of Englishmen years hence when even the memory of a Hutchison has faded, and there will always he a certain amount of accompanying betting. The Anti-Gamblers of England sought to stifle turf speculation, not only on, racecourses, but in social clubs, and utter failure crowned their efforts. In Americaalawwas actually passed to stop course wagering, but what has been the result ? Simply the abolition, of cash for credit betting, and we think most people will agree that the less credit is obtainable in turf matters the better for the public. Hang out a credit sign and many men will bet on the chance of winning, knowing that an extension of time will be given them if their speculation fails. And what has been the result of the Sydney-side crusade against shop betting ? Utter failure, for though heavy fines were inflicted in the first blush of the Reformers’ enthusiasm, the secret “ tote,” an infinitely worse thing than the legalised machine, still flourishes under the very nose of the N.S.W. police. Legislators may throw out the totalisator,. but they will never eradicate racing, and so long as that continues the spirit of speculation will accompany it. We do not defend betting. On the contrary, we quite recognise the fact that it is an unfortunate, but inevitable, accompaniment of racing. But we do think that if the totalisator is wrecked by short-sighted and blatant Reformers the country will quickly be afflicted with the curse of shop betting. The outlook simply resolves itself into a question of public and private gambling, and even Lord Lamington, the last survivor of the Gaming Committee of the House of Commons, learnt to rue his action in choosing the latter in preference to the former. The report of that Committee suppressed public gambling in England, and shortly before his death Lord Lamington made the following striking admission He stated in Blackwood's Mag azine that “ had they been aware of the dimensions which private gambling was destined to assume, they would never have recommended the abolition of public gambling, which, of the two, is by far the less injurious and liable to abuse.” Our parliamentary representatives would do well to ponder over that quotation.