RACING BROADCASTS
sir,-I willingly pay my taxes. I get good value for them. I willingly pay my radio licence fee. Enough of the programme interests me and I quite see how extraordinarily difficult it must be to construct satisfactory programmes.. I can tolerate’ a symphony being interrupted while we cross to a wrestling match, I can even understand that’ one can hear a Bach Toccata and Fugue being played, and immediately after, the announcer saying "The time is now 8.15 and we begin our programme For the Music Lover with a rendition of Ketelby’s ‘In a Persian Market’." I can forgive the lady narrator who mentioned "A Goitre Festival," in honour of the greatest of German poets. But I am puzzled about one matter. Maybe I am just dumb and there is some simple answer, The question is the ethics of race broadcasting. I am no wowser and I don’t mind anyone going to the races. But who are the broadcasts for? It seems to me that the willing audience must consist of three sorts of listener. Firstly a small number who cannot attend the races but who have friends there placing bets for them. Secondly there will be bookmakers noting results. Thirdly there will be a large number of people who bet through bookmakers-that is, as the law stands, illegglly. I am not concerned with the rightness or wrongness of the law about bookmaking; it is to be reconsidered, I believe. What I am puzzled about is just this: Should the State spend its money-that is your money and my money-providing inforthation which is mostly for the benefit of persons who are not acting according to the laws of the State? Let us have laws, as few and as good as possible, but for heaven’s sake let the State stand by them and not connive at the breaking of them. The logical extension of such condonation is anarchy and general contempt for the law. Or am I being unreasonable?
J.
PISTOL
FOR SHALLOW AND SILENCE ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW ‘(Pipikaretu),
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19490114.2.14.8
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 499, 14 January 1949, Page 5
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338RACING BROADCASTS New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 499, 14 January 1949, Page 5
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