NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1558, 30 September 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

The contentions put forward by i the President of the Wellington Rac- [ ing Club in favour of the rcintroduci. tion of the double totalisator at race , meetings are sound enough up to a , point. The bookmaker, who is the greatest evil in connection with ' gambling on horse-ra'cing, would undoubtedly receive a heavy blow if the k double totalisator- were reinstated. i That he would be killed outright we doubt. At the present time he manages to live on the public very largc- _ ly by means of double betting. There [ are always people looking for wagers . at long odds, and the bookmakers— ■ although the odds they offer are in t most cases far short of what the actual odds against the backer really amount to—are the only medium available for this class of wagering. And the evil of this lies in the fact that wagers can be made with them practically every day in the week and all tho year round; whereas with the totalisator the man who wants to bet can only do so on the racecourse itself. Any step likely to make the business of the bookmaker more prc- ■ carious and less worth undertaking deserves consideration, and for this reason Mr. Harcouet s reference to the double totalisator calls for attention. The betting on horse-racing ' which takes place on the course itself does infinitely less harm than the | betting which is encouraged by the '' presence of the bookmaker in our ' cities and towns, and the facilities he daily affords to those who would ' otherwise be unable to bet except ; when they were able to attend a race 1 meeting. It is not necessary to clab--1 orate this point. We. have done it ' often enough in the past. That the ' present or any other Government is ; likely to tackle this question boldly : at the present time we greatly doubt. ' Yet there is so much to be gained by 1 confining wagering on horse-racing to ' tho racecourses that it is quite the \ obvious_ thing to attempt to do. But 1 the anti-gambling section of the coms munity imagine that they can stop ■ gambling altogether, and holding ! that view, refuse to assist those who ; would limit it in the manner stated. The Voice of Labour, a vigorously- , written Auckland weekly journal, [ claiming to bo "the only Labour , newspaper in New Zealand," in its ] issue of Saturday last compliments tho Massky Government "on the firm , yet tactful stand" it has taken in . connection with the Waihi strike. . But for the action of the Government, ; it states, very serious developments : would have taken place at Waihi. It I is, perhaps, worth while quoting this . Labour paper's views of the conduct ' of certain members of Parliament: i .... What arc we to think of responsible monitors of Parliament, men sworn to maintain law and order, and one an ex-Minister ol the Crown, taking ex- ' ception to the Government's attitude? We '■ must adopt one of two conclusions in ex- ' ■ planntion of their 6trnnge protest—(l) , That they are fully aware of the real ! meaning of the Waihi strike and the attendant attempt at lawlessness, but for ! (lie, sake of hoped-for political or party advantage have deliberately tried to ob- : struct, the Government; or '2) that they • acted iu ignorance i>f the re-al mil.ure and seriousness of the situation in Waihi, null I from a sincere conviction that any intcr- ! ference in the interests of law and order ' wjus unnecflfsary. If Um.former, then we J, have no hesitation, ia »yi,ug that the

quicker those gentlemen are out of the Itotiso (lie tetter. Wo can conceive of no owcr.stagn of political degradation' than that which would prompt 'men for the sake of politically obstructmg their opponents to plneo human life in jeopardy, and that is what it would mean for. the Government to have withdrawn the police from Waihi. lint wo will he charitable, fliul prefer to think tlmt tho protestors spoke in ignorance, but if "ignorance, ox-cu.-etli no mini" in law, though he ho denied all opportunity of acquiring knowledge, how much less excuse is there fur ignorar.co in the law-maker? And if it is, as we prefer io think it is that these men elected by the people to help make laws have been too apathetic to make themselves fully acquainted with the situation in Waihi before rising to protest against a course of action that was absolutely necessary to safeguard human lite and liberty, then again most assuredly the sooner' such men ore out of tho House the bettor. A point which has been made before, but which is worth repeating, is made by The Voice, of Labour. Tho suggestion has been put forward that the presence of the police irritated the strikers, and that there was no lawlessness until the police arrived. Tho answer given to this by The Voice is—(l) That all tho lawlessness in Waihi occurred before the police were sent;- (2) that it was merely to protect themselves against that lawlessness that the unionists asked the Government to send police; (II) that there has been no lawlessness since the police arrived. We cannot say whether or not this statement is literally correct. It certainly is not very far from the mark. There is not the least doubt that breaches of the law were taking place before the police arrived, and that the police have been remarkably successful in preserving law and order since they put in an appearance on the scone. A very nasty suggestion has been made on more than one occasion by Mr. Payne, M.P., concerning instructions issued to magistrates as to tho penalty they shall inflict on strikers brought before them. Tho member for Grey Lynn, so far as we know, has not dared to declare outright that magistrates have been instructed to, impose the full penalty on_strikers; but he seeks to convey the impression that such is the case. In his address yesterday, for instance, he said that when organised labour succeeded in getting a majority in the House "(Iten'no magistrate would bo given secret instructions to impose tho full penalty of tho law on strikers." If this means anything, it means to the average reader that someone now does give such secret instructions. *A person who makes so serious an. allegation— one calculated to arouse fear and distrust in the honest and impartial administration of justice—has only two covy-ses open to" him. He must either prove his charge, and by so doing perform a high public duty, or refuse to face this obligation, and meet the contempt which is the due of a slanderer who circulates cowardly'and damaging libels by suggestion and innuendo. _ Mr, Payne has earned the reputation of being 'a somewhat irresponsible person in his public capacity, but there are limits to the liberties of speech which are permitted even to a politician of his class; and his utterances on the question under review- overstep tho boundary line. He must answer for them. In Parliament 'and out of it he has made the suggestion that the magistrate at Waihi received instructions to impose tho full penalty of the law on the strikers. That suggestion is true or it is untrue. It rests with Mr. Payne to show which.