The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 1888. THE GAMBLING INSTINCT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1842, 16 May 1888, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 1888. THE GAMBLING INSTINCT.

Every session of Parliament brings round with it some attempt on the part of our legislators to suppress some sort of gambling. Now it is m the form of a Gaming and Lotteries Act, which exacts penalties for various kinds of gambling offences, and now it is to prevent betting on racecourses by means of totalisators. All these efforts aro no doubt well meant for the good of the public morality, but so long as a gambling instinct is within the human breast so long will gambling m some form or other bo carried on. Our gambling may not take such a form as to run riot with the statute made and established, but it may be gambling all tho same. By some who ought to know better tho spread of legalised gambling is put down to tho credit of our legislators, who are not so religious m many instances as some people might liko to see them. With the religious instincts of the individual members of the Legislature wo have nothing to do. It thoy are honest men and true, their religious persuasions aro to us matters of secondary importance Wo do not judge legislators by their religious qualifications, but to say that thoy as a body uphold gambling or such evils is not tho case. It has been over and over again reiterated that men cannot be made moral by Act of Parliament, aud no legislation will ever put an end towhatafter all is an evilwbich brings with it its own ultimate condemnation. That gambling carried to any extent becomes a vice, is what cannot bo denied, but tho victim nlono is to blame. If a man has not the moral courage to resist the ovil infatuation, it is most unlikely that any means can bo devised to prevent him carrying on bis infatuation so long as ho has tho whorewithal to do so. Parliament, therefore, should not bo mado a medium for the discussion of questions such as, how to prevent gambling. Its attontion is more directly required m framing laws for the liberties of the people. The evils put down to the credit of gambling and such like courses may bo safely left to the Churches. It is their duty as tho social and sp'ritual advisers of tho people to see to it that anything foreign to tho purity and harmony of human life is kept at a safe distance.