The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, SEPT. 20, 1892. Gambling Reform

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 40, 20 September 1892, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, SEPT. 20, 1892. Gambling Reform

I These \b just now a crusade against gambling and betting being inaugurated in England, and the first indication of its earnest character was given when, for the first time since its inception, the House of Commons refused consent to adjourn on Derby Day. This was done as a protest against gambling. Of course this did not keep the real sporting members away while, doubtless, many of the others remained at their posts, where in the words of Butler's Hudibrms they " compounded for sins they were inclined to, by damning those they had no mind to." It has long been a problem with many well meaning men to devise a means whereby they may check, if not completely stamp out, what appears to be one of the strongest passions in frail human nature. Unhappily all means which have hitherto been tried have singularly failed to accomplish the desired end. In America the Legislature made it impossible, so far as they were concerned, to carry out certain lotteries by prohibiting the carriage of circulars or newspapers containing their advertisements by mail, and it is claimed that this killed the lotteries. In England a Bill has been prepared making the publication of betting odds before (they would do little good or harm after) any race a penal offence, and the present Parliament will be urged to pass drastic laws against gambling — on races. In New Zealand our Legislators checked gambling by abolishing " sweeps " and establishing on a legal footing the totalisator. We do not think that sweeps, as we understand them, or the totalisator is known in England, but they have other means of losing money quite as effective, no doubt. The Gaming and Lotteries Act of New Zealand, which was intended to do so much towards the furtherance ot morality, and the restraint of wickedness in respect of betting, haß not accomplished all that was hoped of it, because the money which otherwise would have been " kept in the country " if protected by legal restrictions as clearly denned as those which apply to Jockey Clubs' using the Totalisator, is now 1 sent to a neighboring colony for investment in " consultations " both bogaa and bond fide. If people will gamble in this particular way, it would be just as well for them to be protected in their folly by legislation. By this means one mode of gambling at least would be kept under a recognised and probably eflicient restraint. It goes without saying that other forms of this vice, such as speculating in stocks or shares, corners in wheat, copper, iron or any other marketable commodity, by leviathans and small fish who move and have their being in the stormy waters of the great financial ocean, will not be interfered with. The interests represented are too great, and the men controlling them far too powerful for the reformers to venture an attack upon them —even if they were inclined to— which clearly they are not. Gambling on horseracing may be modified by legislation, but that the vice will by the same course be eradicated from human nature is just as unlikely as that a law against skittles will ever prevent war and bloodshed. The vice of gambling and the desire for war will remain with us until a greater change is effected that can be accomplished by weak human hands.