THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1907. "IT IS THE LAW!"

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8996, 5 December 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1907. "IT IS THE LAW!"

It is difficult to understand the attitude taken up by the Attorney-Gen-eral m regard to the admission of bookmakers to racecourses. Many racing clubs have for years endeavoured to get rid of the "bookies," and betting, and this has been in keeping with the i:voral trend of our social legislation; yet the new Gamins Act has forced all clubs holding totalise tor permits to admit the pencillers, while at the same time placing in the hands of the club authorities the power to sweep them off the courses. The Feilding Racing Club, a few days ago, decided to exert that power, and, while strictly complying with the law, imposed such disabilities upon the bookmakers that the race meeting took place without their presence. Other clubs are taking similar steps, and as a consequence a deputation of leading bookmakers on Tuesday last bitterly complained to the Minister of Interior of the harsh treatment they were receiving. Then the Attorney-General turned his wrath upon the clubs, and threatened that if they refused to carry out the spirit of the section relating to the admission of bookmakers to racecourses, he would do his duty and rescind the permit to use the totalisa tor. It would be difficult to say what the Attorney-General considers "the

spirit of the section" is; but seeing that the Government has condemned betting and gambling generally, and has passed stringent laws for its punishment, one would imagine the racing clubs, in taking advantage of the legal power given to them to suppress betting on their courses, are adopting the spirit as well as tho letter cf the law. The Attorney-General is setting his face against the very spirit of justice as well as of law, when he seeks to coerce racing clubs to interpret an Act of Parliament according to the biassed views he holds on the subject. The clubs, having for long vainly endeavoured to purify their racecourses from the bookmaking element, now find themselves able to gain their ends by legal methods, and the Minister of Interior figuratively shakes his fist in their faces, and says in effect: "If you take advantage of the law, I'll be a lawjjunto myself, and crush you by cancelling your totalisator permits." Truly, things are coming to a pretty pass when a Minister of the Crown openly threatens to wrest the law to his own authority to suit his own views!