The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, August 15, 1912. PROTESTING TOO MUCH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1083, 15 August 1912, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, August 15, 1912. PROTESTING TOO MUCH.

If reforms in New Zealand were commensurate with the noise made by the people who suggest them, this would be a wonderful little couatry. We probably have more protesters per thousand of population than most countries — earnest, violent, vigorous talkers, who mistake mere expression for deeds, and protestations for accomplishments. In the matter of gambling in New Zealand there is one simple truth to consider. The people will gamble despite the most vigorous verbal onslaught made by perfectly serious people. Two parties exist. The one “protects” sport —that is gambling—and venomously classes anti-gamblers as “wowsers,” while the anti-gamblers are equally venomous in their expressions of illwill, and are always exceedingly angry when a majority does not see eye to eye with a miuoiity that likes to set the pattern of morals ior a whole people. This futile lighting merely incenses what are called “ sports ” against what are called “wowsers.” As a term of admiration “ sport ” as applied to the peculiar person who believes “sport” to be the mere greedy act of putting a pound on a horse he need not see in order to get several other pounds from people he doesn’t want to see, is most misleading, but it is never a term of opprobrium by him. There is no real reason for clergymen, however earnest they may be in their desire to see gambling killed by law, to bitterly attack people who gamble. It is to be remembered that the immensely large proportion of people who are devoted to horseraciug, regard it as legitimate to frustrate the designs of the anti-gambling party, and therefore recriminations irom antigamblers merely increase the fighting spirit of “sports.” The Rev. R. S. Gray lately remarked that the public needs protection from the harpies and bookmakers who prey upon the weaknesses of men. The idea of looking upon bookmakers and that brand of man as the source of the trouble is a very feeble one. The bookmakers exist merely because they supply a demand. No means can be devised tor killing the gambling instinct, except by way ol altering human nature. The antigambler’s ‘‘game” is therefore not the bookmaker, but the public, without whom the bookmaker could nut exist. You don’t kill gambling by killing bookmakers, or curtailing race days, or inflaming the mind of alleged “sports” against what alleged sports call “wowsers.” The reverend gentleman said lhal horseraciug was the dirtiest sport on earth. It may be, but it is nut being cleaned by making the remark. It doesn't convince even the cleanest of men engaged in the business. The supposition that there is a tremendously large public opinion against gambling isn’t substantial. The enormous amounts put through totalisators in New Zealand is the most direct answer to the assumption. Mr Gray threatened that if the present Ministry repealed the legislation passed by the last Government, the moral forces of the country will call them to account. Anyone knowing New Zealanders also knows that there is no great moral anti-gambling force, and that therefore an increase of “freedom” to “sports” would be received

with the utmost equanimity by the great bulk of the people. You may rave about the sinfulness of gambling. The only point worthy of consideration is that gambling exists, the people are gamblers, desire to gamble, have always gambled, and will continue to gamble. For rival bodies to verbally tight each other leaves the matter precisely where it was. No legislation that has ever been passed in New Zealand has diminished either gambling or the inclination to gamble. The inclination, and not the bookmaker, is the foe the anti-gamblers have to tight. It is a matter for the formation of a wholesome national detestation of gambling, and until this detestation is real gambling will flourish. We believe that as recrimination by either of the rival parties merely increases the evil and stirs up bad blood, quiet work and personal influence are the only methods by which the desired end may be obtained. The true reformer loves the reform and not the limelight thrown on him lor his vigorous or venomous utterances. To endeavour to prove the justice of closing down on institutions cherished by so large a number of people, because an earnest minority are angry with these people, is a hopeless task. The kid glove and not the mailed fist, brotherly love and not enmity, peaceful means and not wholesale challenges must be the order of the campaign. It is no good protesting at a sore. To remove it requires skill, treatment aud, most of all, unselfishness.