READY MONEY.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1920, Page 7

READY MONEY.

HOLIDAY EXPENDITURE,TOTALISATOR INVESTMENTS ANALYSED. An interesting article is published in the Otago Daily Times of Monday last, from which the following is taken:— A very useful test of the extent of ready money that is available in the country, and of the volume of private expenditure, is furnished in the returns of the amounts that are passed through the totaliaator at the race meetings. If we take the "investments" at these fixtures in various parts of the Dominion during the holiday season we find not only that they reached an amazing total, but also that they were strikingly larger than at the corresponding meetings twelve months previously, when the craving for excitement and the temptation to excess were not unnatural .symptoms of the reaction after the experience of the years of war. We tabulate below the comparative figures showing the "investments" during the carnival of racing which is just j over and at the corresponding gatherings during the holiday season of 1918-19:

! 1919-20, 1918-19. | £ £ Auckland R.C. 438,781$ 266,170 [Manawatu R.C. 172,525 76,379

(3 days) (2 days) Auckland T.C. 121,122} C 8,639£ Canterbury Park

T.C. 83,881 27,381 (2 days) (1 day) Stratford J.C. 79,490 28,593 (2 dayß) (1 day) Marton J.C. 77,401 33,061

(2 days) (1 day) Hawke's Bay J.C. 72,758 43,574 Dunedin J.C. 80,228 l /> 22,783 (2 days) (1 day) Taranaki J.C. 67,019 25,097

(2 days) (1 day) Southland B.C. 80,695$ 44,976 Wairarapa E.C. 49,877 20,093 (2 days) (1 day) Wyndham R.C. 22,096 i 12,694 Greymouth J.C. 21,690j 14,160 Waikouaiti R.C. 17,133 8,323 Westport T.C. 16,686 i 6,035

(2 days) (1 day) Westland R.C. 19,152 16,383 Ashburton T.C. 15,331 16.383 Gore T.C. 14,2484 12.345J

The striking facts of which these figures provide the proof is that the totalisator "investments" at loss than a score of race meetings, little and big, during the past fortnight totalled between £1,300,000 and £1,400,000 —more than £1 per head of the total population of the country—- : and that they were nearly twice as great as at the corresponding meetings of twelve months ago! Now, the attendances at race meetings are representative of all grades of the community. The bulk, we suppose, of the money that is passed through the totalisator is supplied by wage-earners—by clerks, shopassistants, artisans, farm workers, and unskilled laborers. Apparently ready cash was not lacking in their hands during the holidays. iNor does it seem reasonable to suggest that money was being diverted to the totalisator to any appreciable extent from the more legitimate avenues of expenditure. The retail shopkeepers have, at any rate, expressed no complaints concerning the volume of trade either during the holidays or during the year as a whole. Yet, as we know, the cry respecting the increased cost of living is insistently raised throughout the land. How, then, are we to account for the fact that such a great volume of money has been available for purposes of mere pleasure-making and excitement-seeking? The explanation is probably to be found in a combination of causes, among them being the fact that the primary producers are continuing to receive war prices for the commodities supplied by them, the fact that there is still a great deal of loan money in circulation in the Dominion, notably in the form of soldiers' gratuities, and the practical certainty that the high wages whicii are being paid under the Arbitration Court's awards are received in no ineonj siderable degree by workers without do- ' mestic responsibilities. But the freedom with which money lias been spent during j the holidays does suggest the reflection I that large sections of the people are not ' greatly oppressed by the undoubtedly heavy increase in the prices they have tj pay for most of the necessaries of existence.