Sporting Review and LICENSED VICTUALLERS’ GAZETTE. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Thursday, March 26, 1896. THE PREMIER AND THE WELLINGTON RACING CLUB.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VI, Issue 296, 26 March 1896, Page 4

Sporting Review and LICENSED VICTUALLERS’ GAZETTE. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Thursday, March 26, 1896. THE PREMIER AND THE WELLINGTON RACING CLUB.

The principal topic of sporting conversation down the coast is the attempt made by the Premier to coerce the Wellington Racing Club into passing the MastertonOpaki programme. The reply of the Premier to the club’s refusal to follow his instructions has been to refuse to pass the Metropolitan Club’s programme, which has in consequence been withdrawn. The question now is who will back down, for someone will have to sing small, as the present position cannot possibly continue. We regret that such a block should have occurred, and also that Mr Seddon should have taken up this position without sufficient evidence to guide him. He has interfered in this matter, and has thrown down the gauntlet to the Metropolitan body. The question as to who understands the position better, the W.R.C.. or Mr Seddon, does not, from a racing point of view, admit of the smallest question. The Wellington Club has not set itself to justify its action. If it did it would easily beat the Premier in argument. Instead of talking it has simply accepted the Premier’s fiat and withdrawn its programme, leaving the sporting population of the colony to judge between it and the Premier. It looks as though Mr Seddon’s administration of the department controlling the permits for the totalisator is likely to be marred through his impetuosity in coming to decisions in matters foreign to him without first seeking the counsel of those best fitted to advise him. From the Premier’s known character for firmness it looks as though he will prolong this unfortunate dispute, but we hope that in time his desire to further the wishes of the people will cause him to back down. He can assuredly do so without loss of dignity, and next season he will have ample opportunity for discussing the question, for it is inevitable that, in view of the totalisator question having cropped up right under the shadow of Parliament House, next session will see our legislators once again tackle the betting bone and repeat some of their purity maunderings which gave rise to such discussion in previous sessions. If the Premier in particular and the Government in general would recognise their inability to legislate on the question of sport, things would run in a happier groove ; and that will not come to pass until men interested in racing remember at the hustings that there are other questions to be thought of in selecting a candidate than free-trade, the liquor question, and female enfranchisement. It may be that next session the machine will be downed and abolished, but it will only be temporarily. Sport is the play of the nation, and they will protect it. A dog simply growls if you feint to take from him his bone, but once deprive him of it and the growl is transformed into a bite. So it will be when the people find Government interfering with their sport. No Parliament can effect permanent injury to racing, for once the people are roused they will give their legislators sufficient plain speech to cause them to turn their parliamentary attention to subjects with, which they are bettei’ acquainted.