THE GAMING BILL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3777, 7 November 1907, Page 2

THE GAMING BILL.

The New Zealand Herald commenting upon the Gaming Bill says: While the Gambling and Lotteries Act Amendment Bill, which has been placed before Parliament by the Government, will not satisfy those who wish to make all and every form of gambling illegal, it is a measure which deserves general approval as a step towards the elimination of a great public evil. It may be that gambling ought to be policed out of civil recognition; that the totalisator should be suppressed as well as gaming houses, lotteries, street betting, sports ground betting, and allied forms: but it may also be that the habit is so deeply engrained in human nature that the wisest course is to limit and restrict it step by step without attempting those drastic experiments which are so often found to defeat their own ends. However that may be, those who recognise that gambling-has reached a pitch when it should be encountered by legislative enactments in the interests of public moralty and of individual safety, ought to be able to combine upon the proposed measure. They may differ afterwards’as to the advisibility of going further, but there is no good reason why they cannot go so far on the road together, for nothing can be said for the phases of gambling at which the proposed Bill strikes, and even the totalisator evil would be reduced by the refusal of the telegraph offices to accept or deliver under the conditions set forth instructions as to “ investment. ’ ’ Moreover, the restrictions proposed could be very generally enforced, and if this were done we should probably find that gambling would soon cease to be the demoralising influence and wholesale evil that it is at present. The Stars’ opinions on the Bill are thus : The Gaming and Lotteries Act Amendment Bill is certainly a very drastic measure, and the fact that it should be deemed necessary to impose such severe restrictions upon gambling indicates the wide scope of this great evil and the extent to which it appears to have infected every portion of our social system. Indeed, the object of the Bill is so laudable and salutary that there is some ground for fear lest our legislators may be inclined to run to extremes, not only by way of coercive enactments, but by delegating perhaps excessive powers to the officials authorised to carry the law into infect.