“An Augean Stable”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 100, 19 July 1927, Page 12

“An Augean Stable”

Rev. J. J. North Hits Out at Racing and the Gaming Bill TURF FOLLOWERS CASTIGATED SIR GEORGE HUNTER’S Gaming Bill, ancl racing men in general, received a severe drubbing at the hands of Principal J. J. North and the Rev. L. B. Fletcher, at a special meeting of the Council of Christian Congregations last evening.

addresses lull of fiery conaemnatiem a comprehensive motion objecting to the Bill was passed.

“We are here because we are angry and we do well to be angry,” said Principal J. J. North, in opening his address. While the country was undergoing a severe depression, -.ere were racing men wasting the time of Parliament with requests for more facilities for gambling. Those whom the gods wished to destroy, so it was said, they first made mad. He was sure these men were mad and he hoped the gods would get busy. Mr, North recalled the episode of Oliver Twist asking Mr. Bumble for

more. The position to-day was reversed. Oliver Twist was our country and Bumble was the Sir George Clifford. “Sir George Clifford is a citizen and an elderly man and we should deal gently with him, but his position in this is verging on the ridiculous.” The speaker ridiculed breeding of to-day. The sole use of the horse was that it was a good gambling instrument. Yet the Bill aimed to subsidise the maintenance of 5,000 of these animals, each of which ate twice as much as a cow. If the country had any “horse” sense it would know what to do with the Bill. The racing game was incurably dirty. Granted that Sir George Hunter, Sir George Clifford and Sir Edwin Mitchelson had made Herculean efforts to clean it but, the speaker reminded his audience, Hercules had cleaned the Augean stable by destroying it. INCREASE IN GAMBLING He ridiculed the guarantees that the Bill would not increase gambling. If the country believed Sir George Clifford’s guarantees it deserved what it got. The increase in totalisator betting constituted a national menace The racing magnates had no conscience on this particular question. Betting had increased 500 per cent, while the population had only increased 40 per cent.

As for telegraphing bets to the racing club secretaries, the public had had that right 20 years ago. it .ad lent itself to very grave r- practice. It would be a grave impropriety to return to it. In the words of Sir Joseph Ward it would turn the country from Auckland to the Bluff into a vast racecourse.

He personally knew some secretaries, and they were—all sorts of people. In former days they encouraged credit betting. He had a bundle of 1.0. u. s which relics proved that The “big” man didn’t like to go to the “tote” window, explained Mr. North, because some one might hear what tickets he asked for. Did business men want the whole town turned into a huge gambling den and their clerks, male and female, to go tripping out to back their fancies?

He wondered if any of the great racing magnates who were interested in many public companies would advertise for a clerk “a good steady gambler preferred.’* Dealing with the publication of tips and dividends in the newspapers, Mr. North said it would bring out the “tote odds” bookies, a man with no brains and plenty of brass, who was a pest and who stooped to anything. In England they hung about when the doles were being paid out and in New Zealand they had even come round the backdoors soliciting money from the working men’s wives. Mr. North paid the Press of New Zealand a compliment and said that it did not befit the newspapers to open new avenues for gambling. Concluding his remarks, Mr. North hoped that his audience was moved to righteous anger. RELIGION AND BOOKMAKERS It has puzzled some jjfeople why the religious people were candidly on the same platform as the bookm-’-ers, said the Rev. L. B. Fletcher. Some members of Parliament were taking this view, but some members of Parliament were just as gullible as some parsons. He would support the Bill if he knew it was a good thing. He had first-hand information. He knew racing and understood gambling. He had before becoming a parson been a sailor at sea and had taken a hand in some of the biggest gambling schools in Australia. His hearers—well for them—did not understand the gambling terms. The reason for the Bill was that the wealthy racing clubs wanted to make more money. When the clubs posed as public benefactors the public should keep both eyes on them. Let them invest their bottom dollars on that. “I hate the drink traffic like a devil, but I hate gambling like two devils. Gambling is worse than drink.” Would to God the Press had not joined in the advocacy of the right to publish dividends. There was no finer Press in the world. It was a fact that the New Zealand Press alone in the world did not publish dividends and he hoped it would remain so. As far as oeing on tne same side as the bookmakers was concerned, Mr. Fletcher said he would as soon be on th t side as on the side of the clubs. Referring to the number of knights prominently associated with racing, he remarked that it was good to know that there was no “nigh*” in Heaven. If racing men could evolve a system which would confine betting to the racecourse, then they could gamble away until they were bung and bankrupt. The speaker advocated a stricter enforcement of the pres law to cut twn book making. “The police know ese bookies as well as they know me or you,” said Mr. Fletcher. There were about 150 members present in the special meeting, which was held in St. David’s Church. The Rev. D. C. Herron presided.