The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday at Noon. FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1920. TOTALISATOR PERMITS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 513, 12 March 1920, Page 2

The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday at Noon.

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1920. TOTALISATOR PERMITS.

"We nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."

The Franklin Racing Club is nowwell established, having secured a site for a course, drawn up rules, and appointed a permanent secretary. Its great aim now is to secure a totalisator permit, the granting of which depends on whether or not the Government increases the number of permits issued. The trouble over permits has its origin in a negative system of morality, the believers in which hold tenets that, in the main, consist of thou shalt nots. Despite the fact that although anti-gambling legislation has been passed in abundance by our Legislature during recent years, gambling has increased on the totalisator, while the less open forms have been driven underground, but not exterminated. These results are what might be expected by anyone capable of viewing human nature impartially, because sport, with the gambling element allied, is inherent in humanity the world over, and always will be. The best that can be done in regard -to indulgences which are liable to become hurtful is to so regulate and control them that the minimum of harm will result: abolition of any popular pastime is not possible, for the reason that a State 1 cannot permanently enforce laws against the people who compose, that State if a large percentage of them honour such laws in the breach rather than in the observance. This is a fundamental principle of statecraft. If any district in New Zealand is entitled to a racing permit. Franklin is thnt district, seeing that there is no totalisator meeting held between Auckland and Claudelands (Hamilton). Here is a district, of which Pukekohe is the centre for about 10,00(1 inhabitants, and if a substantia! proportion of them desire a local race meeting, it is not the business of others to try to baulk that purpose. If the mass of the. people in this Dominion continue to knuckle' down to the kill-joy crowd of st!i'-appointed censors of public, morality, then they will soon be in a state of servitude, wherein they will have to go cap in hand to these ascetic censors for permission to enjoy themselves in a rational way. according to their respective tastes. A racing club does not ask for support from those who do not believe in racing; it is 'financed and carried on by enthusiasts in that branch of sport, and to allow outsiders to dictate to them is a rather weak-kneed attitude. The objectors to racing have acquired their present undoubted power, not because of any intrinsic virtue in their tenets, but because the average person has not bothered much about combating their doctrines. But if the moderates in the Dominion once become exasperated with the continuously increasing curtailments of their liberties, than the negative moralists will get a rude shock; also, if our representatives in Parliament pay overmuch heed to the stertorous voices of loud-mouthed denunciators of amusements that are carried out in open daylight, fair and aboveJboard, and properly controlled, then they, too, will get marching orders, and be: obliged to vacate their seats, which will be filled by more courageous and broadminded legislators.