THOSE AWFUL RADICALS!

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8360, 21 February 1913, Page 6

THOSE AWFUL RADICALS!

The newspaper that exists to glorify the great landowners’ political party thinly disguised as “Reform” has made a new and startling discovery. It is that the source of the evils of gambling in Britain may be traced to the Radical press'! Commenting on Lord. Newton’s Betting Inducements Bill, and discussing the alleged immoral effects of publishing bookmakers’ advertisements and tipsters’ prognostications, the squatters’ organ unburdens itself of profound philosophy by making out that the worst offenders are not the sporting papers but “the halfpenny Radical - newspapers which circulate so widely amongst the ignorant and uneducated.” IBhe wicked owners of these disreputable publications (which, of course, ought to be effectually suppressed by Act of Parliament) are, we are gravely informed, wealthy Radicals who preach of the evils of gambling and whose “hypocrisy” is most reprehensible and* “repulsive.” Now, 'We have the authority of Mr John Duthie —who ought to know—that the squatters’ organ was brought into being in- the interests * of public purity and to give a sadly-required “tone” to the New Zealand press. May we look for a, practical example of disinterested altruism over this question concerning which the English Radical papers are so full of worldliness and sinfulness? All horseracing, as everybody knows, induces gambling. Betting, arid the turf admittedly go hand in hand; they are, indeed, inseparable. Yet we have known race meetings to bo advertised in the columns of the land monopolists’ mouthpiece, and it is fair to assume that such announceownts have yielded revenue. Probably the moral aspect of this .question has been overlooked by those responsible for the management of the squatters’ organ; but now that the offences of the “Radical press” have been pointed out —Strictly in the public interest, of course—wo are entitled to expect that no more of the objectionable advertisements will be allowed to appear in a journal whose sole 'object in life is to elevate the community. It may be that those who run the British Radical newspapers know no better. The squatters’ organ can clearly offer no such excuse.