SOME GUIDING PRINCIPLES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 19, 10 May 1906, Page 3

SOME GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Elsewhere in- this issue (pp. 2, 17-18) we make reference to the extraordinarily vehement and fitter attack made last week by members of the Council of the Churches (Wellington) on Catholic art unicns. Despite the violence of its denunciations, the Council— like other similar ,l<odie.s throughout New Zealand— has 'evidently no fixed principles on xhe ;i bject which they call by the vague name ol l gamming.' They are marvellously shy about defining terms or laying down, expanding, and establishing principles. And they apparently visit with the same deep damnation ha'penny pitch-and-tcss, and a threepenny raffle for a plaqlie in oils, and the stakihg of fortunes on onr's ' fanoy ' in horse-flesh or on the trenchling chances of rouge-et-noir. Catholics claim the right to be 'judged in this matter, not by the vague -whooping of members of the Council of 'churches, "but by Catholic thee logical piiicipleM, which are clear, unmistakeable, and in full accordance with right reason and Scripture. The following article on the subject was written by Father Masterton, S.J., and appeared in the ' Austral Light ' in November, l'jjpl. It deals with the subject much more fully than has been possible for us in the restricted space of an. editorial article :—: — No one will deny, writes Faiher Masterton, that gambling is often a sin or the occasion of sin. It in sinfud for the father of a family to gamble awayi the mcney which ought to be spent on his children's education. It is sinful for the shop assistant to risk in betting or gamiing the money which he has filched from his master's till. It is sinful for the bank clerk to stake money which he has embezzled from his banik. Also gambling is to be condemned whenever it leads to the breach of a law which the gambler is bound to observe ; whenever it is the occasion of drunkenness, or quarrel'inn;, or blasphemy, or causes him to violate the precept af hearing Mass on Sunday. Of these and other sins gambling is often the occasion. In-deed, gambling may be attended with sc many and such serious evils that the reformer who would successfully cope with them would deserve the gratitude of his country. We are not without reformers, who try to cone with them. They abound in our midst, and their greatest enemies cannot charge them with any lack of zeal. Certainly, they cry aloud and s-nare not. But so small is the measure of success which rewards their efforts that they would be very well advised to pause and ask themselves whether, after all. there may not be something wrrng in their methods. For myself, I cannot help thinking that their want of success is largely due to the headlong intemperance of their zeal. You •cannot hector or bully men into becoming virtuous. Especially, if you wish men to give up a practice the propensity to which is deeply rooted in their nature, wisdom, as I should have thought, ought to suggest other weapons than the scalping-knife and the tomahawk. Our reformers are never tired of bearing

linl^hH Kjjamess and prevalence of the gambling &pint. If the di&easo is so prevalent and so. inveterate, surely there is all the greater call on the phyaician to proceed with great caution and prudfSiUiS »! viu if p S sicians mAy probe and knife as ruthlessly as if the use of these instruments were thur dear delight. No diminution is drawn between gambling and gambling, ihe practice is condemned as absolutely and as roundly as if the reformers themselves believed, and as if they wished to convey the impression .to their hearers, that all gaining ii alwa } s and essentially wicked. I hope, * then, that it nay be useful! it, walking aoberly in the light which Catholic moralists have shed on my path I briefly investigate the question whether, independently of the restrictive measures which may have bpen passed from time to time by our rightful legislators, and of the sins which gambling may occasion, there is anything m the practice which antecedently condemns it, or makes it intrinsically and essentially wrong. NECESSARY RELAXATION. I suppose I may take it for granted that at the present day there is no one ao puritanic as not to allow that men and women have a right to seek necessary or useful relaxation in a game of cards or chess or m any other game that is innocent or harmless The adage, < all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,' is e^lually verified in children of a larger growth. This, I may take for granted. It will be questioned either by none or only by the very few who would not believe Moses or the Prophets if they were to return from the dead. Moreover, games in which the players have no hope of gam and run no risk of loss are very liable to languish and to fail to attain the end above indicated—the affording, of necessary or useful recreation Occasionally, perhaps, we may meet with two who are so attached or so sentimental as to find recreation in a game cf cards played for love, but I think that, as a very general rule, a small money stake must be added to give zest tc the game. This seems to me so) lawful) that, if I uere not comftatijn.g the con tention that gambling ia intrinsically wrong, I should feel a call on me to ap< logise to my readers for offering proof of a, fact which is in itself so The sternest moral i>it will admit that I may make my friend a nrcsent of a sun. of money. How then can it be wrong for me to make his getting an equal sum dependent on the. condition that he shall be the winner in the game in which he and I are goim* to engage ? If I have such dominion over my mcney that I mary make a free gift of it to my neighbor, surely I may give it to him Ih rough the medium of a contract which, in addition to giving me recreation,, otters the hope of gain. It is clear, then, that there is nothing immoral in the loser making over his stake to the victor in the game. It is equally clear that there is nothing immoral in the victor's accepting it. Again, if I may accept money from my friend as a free gift, why may I not receive it. as the result of a contract which gave him an eq\ual hope of winning and exposed me to an equal risk of loM'ne; ? The risk that I ran is a marketable quantity, and is the equivalent of the mcney which I won. It may occur to my readers to ask does gambling become sinful if the ganvbler, instead cf seeking relaxation or recreation, makes profit his primary end or object 9 So long/ as the gambler does not positively exclude every higher end, he may without sin make gain or profit the primary end of his gambling. First, the gambling contract is not in 'itself unlawful, as I have shown. Secondly, the pursuit of gain is not in itself unlawful. That is to say, neither end nor means is unlawful ; and, since it cannot be sinful to pursue a lawful end by lawful mear»s, it is not sinful to> untend gambling as a means to the increasing of our wealth. The more rigorous moralists object to this position. They say the tenth Commandment forbids us to ccvet our neighbor/ s goods, and that the gambler who makes profit his primary end necessarily covets his neighbor's goods, and therefiore necessarily breaks the tenth Commandment. The answer to this objection seems to me to be very plain, and altogether satisfactory. What such a man directly intends is, not his neighbor's loss, but his own gain,, iand a man may without sin prefer hia own gain to the equal gain of his neighbor. Or, if Ihis way cf puttinej the case looks too much of a refinement, I will put the same answer in a somewhat differed 3 Sorm. Such ia man 1 does not desire his neighbor's goods in <a way that is forbidden by the tenth Commandment ; he merely wishes that his neighbor's goods should be transferred to himself through the medium of a contract into which *boih he and his opponent freely enter, a contract in which each has a more or fess ef^aal hope of gjain, and each runs a more or less equal risk of loss.