JUDGE EDWARDS AND THE TOTALISATOR

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIV, Issue 809, 7 September 1905, Page 7

JUDGE EDWARDS AND THE TOTALISATOR

"When sentencing Percy Dawson, late accountant to the Auckland Racing Club, to a term of imprisonment for embezzling the club's funds, Mr. Justice Edwards took advantage of the occasion to make some strong charges against the totalisator. lie is reported to have said that “ it was probable the prisoner might have led an honest, respectable life but for that curse to society, the totalisator —-a legalised machine enabling the public of this country to gamble all the year round, every day and all day.” We pass over the sentence given Dawson, which punishment seems very remarkable when it is stated that in an almost identical case lately in Victoria, where a clerk was convicted of embezzling £l5, he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, while Dawson, for appropriating £2938, receives twelve mouths. Neither do we desire to argue the point as to whether a judge should merely administer the law and not criticise it. But to His Honor’s closing remark we take strong exception. We hold no brief for the totalisator or for the Racing Club, but we do believe in the principle of common sense and fair play. The judge’s definition of the totalisator irresistibly recalls that famous dictionary definition of a crab. This stated that a crab was “ a red fish which walks backwards.” The only conceivable objection to the description is, of course, the fact that a crab is not red, is not a fish, neither does it walk backwards. Mr. Justice Edwards states from the Bench that the totalisator enables the public to gamble all the year round, every day, and all day. This might have been accurate enough but for the fact that it is as impossible to gamble on the totalisator all the year round as it is to gamble on it every day and all day. Such a remark uttered by the man in the street would be laughed at as so much nonsense, but coming from one of our judges it is given a prominence which it hardly deserves. Now we yield to none in our respect for Judge Edwards, but we cannot help thinking that if he had visited the course and inquired into the workings of the machine and also its raison d’etre, he would have refrained from such sweeping criticism. Surely with him this is a case of mistaking cause for effect. Gambling has always existed, but with the idea of controlling it the totalisator came into existence. To hear the anti-totalisator people talk one would think that because the machine method of betting obtains it has created gambling, than which a greater fallacy never was held by anyone. , If the totalisator is such a curse to society, what is the reason some of the most prominent men in New South Wales and Victoria are doing their utmost to introduce it into those States with a view to having the gambling which goes on under some sort of control?. Why is it that in the two States mentioned, where the machine does not exist, there is more gambling in its worst form carried on than in this colony and in the other States of the Commonwealth where the machine has existed for years? Why, also, have both France and Germany recently seen fit to frame the most drastic laws on the subject, which virtually compels everyone to visit the race-

. course and use the totalisator if he wishes to bet, and which thus confines the gambling to the course? There is no use burking the fact that gambling in some form or other has existed from time immemorial, and will exist when we are all dead and forgotten. We must face the problem and attempt to control it. The Government has decided, and we think rightly, that the totalisator is the best means of doing this, for certainly some good is derived from it in improving the breed of horses by increasing the stakes. But because one man is dishonest, don’t let us all rush to the conclusion that it is the totalisator which is to blame. As well find fault with banking on account of the defaulting bank clerk, or with the Church because of the black sheep occasionally found within its fold. Before all things, let ns have fair play.