THE GAMBLING CRAZE

Hokitika Guardian, 28 January 1932, Page 8

THE GAMBLING CRAZE

A LABOUR LEADER’S FEARS

“When and where is the nation-wide craze for gambling going to stop?” asks Sir Ben Turner, the British Labour leader, in the course of an article on the growth of the some-tfuing-for-nothing spirit. “Though it will not seem so to many folks, this seems to me one of the most important questions of the day,” he adds, and goes on to' say: “Some member of nearly every household in Britain is giving time and energy and an optimism that could be much better employed to the puzzling, out of newspaper competitions that will never bring the slightest reward and to vain hopes pf winning illusive sweepstakes. The prospect of ‘summat for nowt’ has always been a rosy one of those people who place easy gains before service, and I suppose to many others besides. Tt is human nature. But of late years a side issue has crept in—the element of risk. This satisfies the instinct for gambling as well as the instinct for greed. So that ‘summat for “almost” nowt’ has become now the ideal of millions. And it is just this ‘almost’ that’s bothering me. The gamblers call it a risk, but the risk is so insignificant that it may he truthfully said they are on. a certainty of losing. Yet in this practical certainty millions of pounds are being invested in sixpences, shillings and ten-shilling notes - -mostly by people to whom these ainoutjj- mean something they cannot afford to lose.

“The two things that strike me so i forcibly about it are the useless waste of money and the moral harm to the nation. And puritanical as this may sound, let me try to justify the point cf view. I am more tliail sure that the two million pounds spent on one risky sweep, for instance, would have been better employed in buying boots and clothes and other necessities of life. You may say a million of the stake money came back into Britain — well, the rest went elsewhere. You may point to the benefit it was tothe people who won the prizes, got something for next to nothing, and spent crazed hours building up hopes. I hope those who eventually found themselves in pocket use their winnings wisely and well. But if tney spent the lot on the kind of necessities they wanted, whose purchase keep the nation going, it would be a mere fleabite. Whereas the total money invested could have given a fillip to trade if spent with discretion. “Will the average winner be any better off a year hence ? I doubt ir. Will even the hospitals benefit in tne long run? That, again, is doubtful, because sudden sums accruing like this are liable to dry up the normal flow of subscriptions, in which caso they will have done more harm tkan good. Perhaps I am no judge as to what pleasure there is in it, because I have never had the- gambling spirit. In the old days I have occasionally put sixpence or a shilling on a horse, and once I got seven shillings back for my -shilling- But that did not make me a gambler. Drawing tickets which I never saw again for this club or that has been, about the extent/ of my gambling. And I refuse to do even that now, not from any general prejudice, but because it just didn’t seem right to me. “One- of the best neighbours I ever knew, a good father and a good citizen all round, couldn’t keep off gambling. I have known him win twenty pounds bv tossing and lose forty by the same process and never turn a hair. And these, of course, were considerable sums of money to the people concerned. He was a fairminded gambler, and I don’t doubt that there are many others like him to day. Because millions of people buy sixpenny postal orders and sweep-■ stake tickets, they are not all mad or had. But T am bothered about this subject because I honestly think that if we continue this mad race the nation will soon be on the way to losing, its soul. Trying to got rich quick by gambling is, to my mind, unhealthy and unmoral. The racecourse and the gambling table are very well in their place. No doubt they arcpart of the scheme of things. But when they are dumped on our own private -doorsteps and placed by the firesides of people who have had no previous experience of them 1 say emphatically it is time to call a Tialt.

“We have always been the proudest and best nation in the world. I think wC are vet. But it we want to continue as such, our -success will have to be based on work and service and honesty, not futile greed and as futile attempts to satisfy it. Believe me and don’t think me too much of a preacher when I say we were on the slippery slope. Indeed, any one with eves jo his head can see it. It is high time we took stock ol ourselves and considered where the growth of this sometliing-for-notliing spirit is likely to lend us in the end. The men who built this country were often gamblers, but they were gamblers with fate—not pretty punters who wanted ‘summat for almost nowt.’ ”