The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1906. SPECULATION AND GAMBLING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3718, 2 October 1906, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1906. SPECULATION AND GAMBLING.

The Government is so sincere in its desire to put down gambling, that it will hold an Art Union in Christchurch in connection with the Exhibition. The conduct of a person who preaches is not necessarily the conduct that the preached at should follow. The Bishop of Auckland for instance the other day said he couldn’t see any harm in playing whist for penny points, at the same time speaking very strongly against the gambling habits of the people. The law brought a man in Wellington before the Court the other day for having played a ‘ game of chance ’ but at the same time the Colonial Secretary authorised another person to hold a game of chance—to wit an Art Union. If we are to be holy, the only way is to be wholly holy and not in small spots. If it is wrong to play two-up in a common gambling house for pennies it is wrong for society to play bridge in private houses for half-a-crown a point. If it is wrong to speculate on the throw of a die, it is wrong to speculate in flax, or land, or Government debentures. * * * It is admitted by everyone who is not biassed that it is a sin to try and get a big prize at a horse-race by speculating a small sum. It is never admitted that it is equally wrong to buy a piece of land in 1880 for £SO and sell it in 1906 for ,£50,000 —very long odds. We strain at a needle and swallow a crowbar. It is a sin if the man who swallows the crowbar is not one’s self. Our own pet gamble is never a sin. It is the other fellow.s sin that is getting the

nation under. None of us is any the holier because he has not the opportunity to sin. If Tattersall’s sweeps were swept out and we couldn’t invest in them, this wouldn’t prevent us from wishing we had the old chances —we should sin in thought if not in deed. It we put five shillings on a horse, it is wicked —especially if the five shillings is out of the boss’s till and the horse does not win.

Wit preach about the octopus that is tightening its grip round our fellow man, but we are not worrying to any large extent about the giant squid that is twining itself around us. The parson isn’t any holier than the average man because he says so. His real holiness is demonstrated by the example he sets to the other fellow. Laws don’t make a man any holier. They merely prevent him from doing the wrong thing he is hankering to do. The antigambler is not necessarily a better man than the confirmed gambler. The former may have no temptation. They that are whole need not a physician.

The campaign of anti-gambling which is being fought in all the colonies at the present moment may succeed in getting the avenues for the speculation of money closed, but it wont cure the desire. If one could believe that the Legislatures of the colonies that are trying to do something to stop gambling were in anything but a state of temporary alleged holiness, one could also believe that something lasting was to be done to stop betting speculation. It we could believe that in stopping the avenues leading to racecourse gambling, the Colonial parliaments would also close every other avenue of gambling, then the j ustice and utility of the thing would be apparent. None of the Governments would have thought about the matter but for outside opinion, for all the Governments indulge in gambling.

Everybody has a flutter. This doesn’t prove that fluttering is right. It only proves that man is born that way and that any system of reform has got to be worked through the man and his conscience. You don’t cure a criminal by gaoling him and you don’t cure a gambler by fining him. He vvill gamble as soon as possible again in order to recoup himself ,or the loss of the fine-money. Speculation, apart from the speculation involving money, is the only thing that keeps us smiling. Hope springs eternal in the human breast. If all of of us knew what was going to happen to us on the morrow, some of us woialdn’t want to see the sun rise any more. The uncertainty of life is its chief charm. The uncertainty of gambling is its only charm. If we were certain of losing when we speculated, we would’t speculate. The anti-gamblers must therefore either entirely kill the speculative microbe in man or convince him he will lose in the long run.

The trouble is that despite all the preaching the confirmed gambler does not always ‘go down.’ If the anti-gamblers could advise a way whereby the gambler always come to the dire end the story books says he does, the gambler would become as extinct as the dodo pretty soon. We ought to stop gambling. But it is useless to plug up a gimlet-hole in a barrel if the tap is running. While this country permits the gambling in stock shares land or any other commodity, the average person will be quite unable to see why he shouldn’t gamble in horseracing, dog-racing, boxing, billiards fan-tan and bridge. If you remove the speculative microbe altogether, you might as well remove the patient. To remove the speculative tendency means removing hope.

Anybody who gets money without the expenditure of labor and produces nothing by his effort is a gambler. Why don’t the police arrest him? Life-insurance, fire insurance, accident insurance, and fidelity guarantees are all gambles. Workmens’ homes, mortgages and the land ballot are all gambles. The banking of cash is a gamble. You may get per cent for it but you are speculating on getting five. The hotelkeeper who buys a hotel that cost one thousand pounds, giving five thousand for it, speculating that people would drink enough beer to recoup him for the outlay is playing a game of chance.

Most of us who profess to be very good indeed detest gambling—and gamble. We desire the removal of the mote in our brother's eye and walk round with an opaque pain in our own. No antigambling legislation will be of permanent good that does not pre-

vent everybody trom owning what he has not earned. Wailing for a 1 rise,’accepting interest, holding unimproved land are all just as immoral as backing a horse — somebody suffers. The people of New Zeakflid have been taught the whole art of gambling by the Government and the Government while still the schoolmaster, proposes to thrash morals into its pupils. When it mends its ways, ceases to borrow, ceases the landballot. ceases to increase the price of the land—which it docs in the spirit of gambling in order to increase the revenue and surpluses—mavbe the people will see the error of their gambling habits and become too spiritless to have any money to speculate with.