The Cultivation of Selfishness

White Ribbon, Volume 23, Issue 9, 1 December 1951, Page 1

The Cultivation of Selfishness

THE VICE OF GAMBLING

In V\ ellington recently, we were impressed by the number of people in doorways and elsewhere who were engaged in selling art union tickets. This thing seems to be growing and perhaps it is time that someone looked into the question. There appears to be at least one such, running continuously, but called by various fancy names. This wretched evil of gambling takes many shapes and raises its head in many places. In Canada recently it was urged that the Minister of Justice should bt asked to take vigorous action to combat the use being made by gambling interests, of the telephone, telegraph, radio and other communication services across Canada Last month we quoted the Premier of Victoria as saying that his Government would have nothing to do with a State lottery to finance the hospitals. We quote from an Australian paper some comment on this and related matters. “In a Victorian daily we read .of the outspoken condemnation of the prevalence and corruption of gambling. The speaker said that near his residence there was a betting shop. In three years and a half there had been plenty of opportunity to watch the degrading effects of this institution on the community. ‘When you legalise an evil, you encourage itV* In a recent issue of the Sydney “Bulletin” there is an illuminating article on “Lotteries and Hospitals” anent the recent movement in Victoria for a State lottery. It reads: “Because so much money is pouring into NSW., Queensland, Tasmania and West Australia for lottery tickets, voluntary giving is dying out -in every State. But another State lottery in Melbourne would only add to existing evils without improving the situation of the public hospitals. “In and around the Sydney lottery office on almost every week-day struggles a half-crazed, impatient and frequently violent crowd of ticketbuyers. The place is foetid on hot days, steams in the winter, and if ever it catches fire with a crowd in it, there’ll be a first class tragedy. And flanking it in every alleyway and corner, are sellers of tickets in “art unions” of several kinds. In

these days of high wages, lotteries are drawn almost every day, and vast sums are paid by hundreds of thousands, for the enrichment of disproportionately few lucky buyers. “N.S.W. people, who have had their lottery for nearly twenty years, have waited in vain all that time for the ‘magnificent hospitals’ wdiich Councillor Disney imagines dot the landscape north of the Murray. “Hospitals and hospitalisation in the biggest lottery State are a long-standing scandal. Not a public hospital but is starved for funds and sadly needs equipment, repairs, extensions and staff. Sydney has its ‘hospital button’ days. The position of country hospitals is shocking. In cities and towns the provision of hospital beds and cynics is hopelessly behind requirements. “Nobody buys tickets in a State lottery to help the hospitals. Lotteries are a wasteful and demoralising way of disguising the inevitable cost to the public of health serv ices. Canadians’pay in taxes for their hospitals and therefore pay less. There are no charity collections and no lotteries in Canada.” Quite clearly, it it being recognised that the vice of gambling it productive of a mean-spirited selfishness, that chokes the generous feelings of men and women, and makes more and more for their moral degraoation. It it the responsibility of the Christian community to take definite action against the legislators, who are content for the continuance of this pestilence. —“The Witness” (Official Organ, Diocese of Nelson, N.Z.).