The Press Wednesday, October 29, 1924. Labour and the Gaming Bill.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18216, 29 October 1924, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, October 29, 1924. Labour and the Gaming Bill.

Parliament never gets through- a session nowadays without seeing one or more violent assaults launched against "The Press" from the Labour benches. Nobody, these vigorous fellows always explain, pays any attention to "The "Press," and nobody takes it seriously, a fact -which rather oddly seems to Labour to make it all the more necessary that it should treat the House to regular outbursts of epileptic fury against ourselves. Mr H. E. Holland indulged in one such outburst yesterday, and our readers will agree, when they count up and consider the adjectives with which the Labour leader loaded his blunderbuss this time, that Mr Holland has set himself for his next attack a standard which he will not easily maintain. Nobody regrets more than we do that the Labour Party should use such very immoderate and unkind language, but we do not at all regret that Mr Holland and his friends dislike us. It is easy to understand that they would give a. great deal if "The Press" counted for less than it did, but how can they expect the people to neglect us when they themselves find a loathsome fascination in our columns? The occasion of Mr Holland's outburst was one of our recent articles on tho Gaming Bill, and no other reply to his attack is necessary than a general reaffirmation of everything we have said on this subject. The real reason for his' indignation is his knowledge that the Labour stonewall on the Bill was k a complete failure. Mr Isitt, and the not very intelligent Mr Wright, and one or two other misguided participants in the obstruction of the Bill, were honestly endeavouring to destroy Clanse 2. But Labour was not. Several of the Labour men have no real objection to an increase in the number of permits. Their object was to prevent any gaming legislation which would, assist tlie racing clubs. Tho unreasonableness of their opposition was made clearer than ever by the amendment proposed by Mr Parry on the motion for the third reading of the Bill. His amendment affirmed the necessity for all kinds of provisions respecting jockeys and courses and so on. If the Labour Party had been quite honest it would have adopted the normal and natural course of embodying all these proposals in a Bill of their own; and a poparate Bill jvas certainly tho proper place for them. This .amendment was a twelfth-hour attempt to provide some excuse'for the stonewall, but actually it merely helps the public to understand how inexcusable the stonewall really was, The speeches of Mr Isitt and the other innocent assistants of the Labour Party may do credit to their hearts, but they do no credit to their heads. They were seoking to thwart the will of a majority of the House, and they persisted after it had become clear that the public was not with them. As we understand them, they believe that a minority in the House is entitled to use the forms of tho House to impose its will on Parliament, even if in doing so it does not, as a Parliamentary nlinority conceivably may iu some circumstances, represent the weight of pnblic opinion. Mr Isitt at least ought to know better than that.