NATIONAL SWEEPSTAKES WON'T STOP MONEY LEAVING NEW ZEALAND, SAYS READER

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 36, 17 February 1939, Page 24

NATIONAL SWEEPSTAKES WON'T STOP MONEY LEAVING NEW ZEALAND, SAYS READER

fj Sa valuable reader of your valuabie publication, writes "Belmont" (Palmerston North), I was amused to read your article of January 27, advocating national sweepstakes to prevent the flow of a million pounds a year which is alleged to leave this country for Australia and elsewhere. What evidence have you to offer that the cure would not pe worse than the disease? Your argument is that if New Zealanders could invest in lotteries in New Zealand in a perfectly legal way, they would cease sending money out of ithe country as they are doing at present. My own opinion is that it would be more likely to increase tle amount sent outside than reduce it. Your "argument" is pure assumption, unsupported by the slightest tittle of evidence. Allow me to prove that to you. Years ago, the racing fraternity said, "Give us a State gambling system per medium of the totalisator, and we will abolish the bookmaker." According to your own statement (again unsupported), you say that there are three times as much invested with the "bookies" as there is invested on the totalisator. You have disproved your own case with your own "evidence." All this talk about being unable to stop this flow of money out of the country, is particularly laughable just at the very moment when money is not now exportable because of Government control of exchange. Surely, you must never read the papers, If you want to disprove my contention, go to your banker and tell him you want £50 to invest in Tatt’s, and see how you get on. it is true, unfortunately, that the Government is: still allowing better (!) terms through the Post Office. I hope, however, that this loophole will soon he. closed, All this hoe op Pats

goes to show that your blatant claim that stopping money from leaving the country could be pre: vented is just so much "boloney." I am informed that the Government has taken steps to see that all winnings are paid in New Zealand currency; this means that a man who won a-large prize recently, and who was going to leave the money in Australia for investment, finds now he has to keen the money in New Zealand! Cultivate [¢? THE whole burden of your argument is this: If you eannot cure an evil, then euitivate it. How would the doctors ect on in trying to cure cancer, for instanee, if they worked on the same formula? Do you know, I have the same trouble in my garden; no matter what I do, the weeds will continue to grow, but I have never thought of your wonderful discovery of encouraging them to grow! I abhor the idea that to maintain hospitals, ete., we should raise the necessary funds by gambling. Gambling is anti-social and uneconomic, Once you adopt your suggestion, you kill the spirit of free-giving as demonstrated by Lord Nuffield and many others. Further, this scheme of yours would let the wealthy off paying anything. Personally, | have a contempt for the man who will contribute nothing to anything unless he stands to win a big prize. | object to art unions and all such humbug; the object is better than the procedure. To try and stop gambling is only to drive it underground, you say. Just so; we have been unable, so far, to stop thieving; do you suggest that the law against thieving be abolished and that people be allowed to steal openly? It is only the age-old struggle between right and wrong, justice and injustice; to compromise on these. matters would be morally. fatal. oc. ee i; tagd a

What, i would like to ask, is the effect upon the winners? (I am not much concerned about the losers; I consider gamblers are a lot of "mugs," and entirely agree with an Australian judge who said, "Gamblers have either the brains of children, or they are a lot of imbeciles." ) Technique ‘THERE is a certain amount of technique required to spend money. There are thousands of working men who have not sufficient intelligence to enable them to spend their wages decently. The worker who gambles his wages before he gets home, is not fit to be trusted at all with money -it ought to be paid direct to his wife. Many workers spend onethird of their wages on drink and gambling, and the other two-thirds on their homes. But what about such a man winning £2000 in an art union? Why, nothing but disaster can follow such "luck." | know of such a case, and the result was the man drank himself into the asylum. He is now just where he started. I cannot close this letter without saying how disappointed I am with the Hon. W. Parry in his advocacy of gambling. «As an old stalwart in the Labour movement, he must know that gambling is one of the greatest evils in the country, and that it is no good to the working class. ; The essence of gambling is capitalism. As a Socialist, I claim that no man can be a gambler. and a Socialist at the same time. Gambling, like capitalism, is based upon greed. A man cannot be an atheist and a Catholic at the same time. I hope that this Government will follow the Gladstonian dictum and endeavour to make it easy to do right and dificutt to do wrong are a3 > % ?: Pets Mapa yer, Pt