ANTI-GAMBLING CRUSADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81844, 11 September 1906, Page 2

ANTI-GAMBLING CRUSADE.

REPRESENTATIONS TO THE PREMIER. (Per Press Association.) Wellington, September 10. A large anti-gambling deputation, including the Mayor of Wellington, representatives of Parliament, clergymen and business peopi'e, waited up j •tn the Premier this morning, under the auspices ,of the Wellington Council of the Cliurches. The propositions put forward wefe: — (1) .Abolition of the tota'isator, on the ground that it gives State sanction and respectability to a vice, and has enormously increased gambling. 12) Isolation of .racecourses from telegraphic and telephone communication, which will tend to restrict gambling 0 the actual racecourse. (3) Rendering illegal the publication of betting news and results in the daily papers. It was explained that the desire was to prevent the publication of racing tips and the amount of dividends, not the description of races.

Sir J. G. Ward, in reply, said he recognised the gravity of the extent to which the gambling ovij had grown, and was certain the country would have to legislate with a view to its suppression. It had been brought under his notice that two miJ.ions sterling had been sent out of New Zealand last year for gambling. Something would have to be done to minimise such figures. At the same time, he wanted to say that neither the Post or Telegraph Office could legally do what was asked by the deputation. He was persuaded in his own mind that an alteration should go in the direction of making it difficult, or next to impossible, for money to be sent from outside places to a centre where a race meeting was being held at the time of the meeting. While those who wanted racing had to be considered, its evil effects had been minimised ~ Street betting should be abolished altogether, and betting with a young person should be made a criminal offence. The question»;of the publication of dividends was worth considering, and he was in favour of something of this kind. They proposed .to stop Tattersalll's as far as possible, and he hoped in a few weeks to provent the circulation throughout the colony of Tattersall's (literature.