GAMING BILL

Hokitika Guardian, 16 August 1929, Page 2

GAMING BILL

DISCUSSED BY AUCKLAND PRESBYTERY.

AN ADVERSE RESOLUTION

August 13. “We ministers RnOw’what a vampire gambling is to diuman life. It is a moral leprosy thq® corrupts everything it touches. It injures, degrades, and makes use of no human excellence except to degrade it.” j • In this forceful fashion, the Rev. W. Lawson Marsh, of Devonport, denounced gambling before the Auckland' Presbytery this morning, a hen presenting;, resolutions opposing the proposed Gaming Bill. Mr Marsh took the opportunity to criticise Sir Edwin Mitehelson, president of the Auckland Racing Club, for his speech in Support of the Bill made at yesterday’s annual meeting of the club, and issued a challenge to Sir Edwin or any other, racing official to debate the -question of gambling on the pub*, lie platform. Anyone who had read- Sir Edwin s speech would agree, said Mr Marsh, that they had from the president ot the racing club an emphatic repudiation of the malpractices of bookmak“We welcome him to our side so far,” he added. (Laughter.) am in profound disagreement with his other observations, Sir Edwin says that- ~4 instead r. of the Churches foolishly opposing the proposed Gaming Bill their business js the elimination of the bookmaker. I wish to say with all the force (it my command, it is not our business to .eliminate' the bookmaker, but the business of the State. Bookmaking is a criminal offence, and it is not the business of any Church to do what is the work of the police, however willing we are to co-operate with them in promoting its elimination.” Mi 1 Marsh said he had no objection to a person taking an interest in sport, but the gambling element perverted all-true sport. “We maintain that gambling makes a fool of every man,” he added, to the accompaniment of “Hear, hears.’’, ' ' ' -That is ” he said, “my reply' to’ Sir Edwin Mitehelson. We have come to a time int'OttC. 1 history; u hen the Christian Churches have to fade what is the greatest social menace of- : to-day. Some look upon drink as the greatest evil, but in comparison with gambling it is a receding quantity as an influence for evil.”

Mr Marsh then moved resolutions stating that the Auckland Presbytery draws attention to'the alarming increas'd b'f gambling in'* recent years; that the totalisator tends tO/‘-j3opu--1 arise and so increase a habit, which is a fruitful cause of . degradation and poverty; that the proposed amendment to the gaming law is a retrograde step; that the Presbytery calls on the Government not only to throw out the proposed Bill, but also sternly to enforce the present gaining laws, especially with reference to bookmakers, and face the question of reducing the present facilities)?, j In seconding the resolutions,• the Rev.- D. O. Herron supported the contention that gambling was one of the most serious evils in New- Zed-' land to-day. Sir Edwin Mitehelson’s. statement had a minor key in that he seemed to he counting heads in respect to the Gaming Bill, and was not too sure of the result.

In response to a suggestion by the Rev. E. R. Harries that he would far rather have the bookmaker than the totalisator, -Mr Herron said the only redeeming 'feature about the totalisator was that when a man wanted to ibet he had to have his money in his hand. The resolutions were carried unanimously.