plused tow on betting, bus hig. erttictoms wilt be none the lose Canon Green writes admittedly as ax opponent of the
interesting to many readers and do not seem without point.
The Report of the Commission a Duty on Betting, a bulky volume of 672 pages, contains, in addition -to a full report of the evidence, some valuable appendix ~00s and 'a full index, no less than three reports, namely, the final] official report, the draft report proposed by Mr. H. 8. Cnutley, x.0., Chairman of the Committes, and' the draft minority report} proposed Mr. Isaac Foot. the first, after a really valuable review of. the legal position of gambling and a usefal explain tion of the various methods of betting, comes to a sudden and, the dissolution of Parliament having: prevented the Commission from further considering the draft report, Only one "finding' is recorded;' to the effect. that tax on botting is "practicable, But (a). such practicability is admittedly dependent on. ithe pos-of suppressing street betting altogether; (b) all the evidence Inid before the Commission, and] alt xporience, ko to prove thet the police ave powerless to. effect hiss (c) it is not, likely that it!
prove any easier to suppress bret botting when the existence of a tax hag supplied an additional incentive to evasion: and. (4) the experience of countries where the pari mutuel is in use, where Fetting 18 in any other way] legalized, shows that illicit betting has not merely not been suppress ed but. has actually increased, So] the single finding of the official report would seem to be valucle 'My. Foot's draft report, on the} other hand, is a really masterly! pince of work. Tt is plain, unadorned, practical and to' the point. it recognizes to the full the moral and social, damage! enured by gambling, end recommends just those methods of combating the evil which experience! in other fields of social reform has proved most efficacious, Spociallaw of God; unless, that is to] say, we deny that Nonconformists can be regarded og "truly, Obris-
England is declared to be di But two of the three witnesses called, the two first selected, were apparently chosen because they had already declared in favour of a tax.
(d) If the contention of the Commission were true it would be unimportant. © Public—opinion saw nothing "immoral or sinful" men drunk daily after two in the in the days of Walpole in states-
afternoon, or in the days of Wellington in'duelling, or in the days of Clarkson and Wilberforeo in negro slavery.
Equally indefensible is the obiter dictum, that State regulation or taxation would no more imply encouragement. of betting or un invitation to bet than Ticensing of public houses implies encouragement or invitation to "drinking." If by drinking the use gf alcohol is meant it clearly docs imply such invitation, by drinking we are to understand drunkenness, it ts inexcusable that the report should equate betting to drunkenness and yet deny that it is morally wrong. What, makes the matter worse is that the biguity of the phrase "drinking" was repeatedly. pointed out to Mr. Cautley during the sittings of the Commission, But the whole report shows @ com-plote, inability to discuss threat questions, AMITIOIAIC ALL WRONG, Bul if thie report is morally unsatisfactory it is arithmetically Absurd. "The Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue admitted that only 164 bookmakers doing nothing but street betting good are the brief paragraphs! IF the numbers of those who commid income tax, and that even on "educational" and "social" methods of combating the evil, CONTRADICTORY AND ARMUTRAWY, Of the draft reform proposed by Mr. Cautley: the exact opposite il. Tt is longs, who al, contradictory and" curiously} arbitrary in its treatment of the) evidence Inid before the Commission, Tis worst features arc} the author's obiter diet on the moral isstio and its really prepostorouis findings on the subject] of the amount of money spent on enjoyed by bookmakers, Both ting and the rate, of pro
thoro points call for brief notice.
The report, declares, that boon proved before the Commission that, jerson's who} bet and Inve numbers of others!
pablo of (the writer of the report does not real-Sy mean that the people referred to were incapable of estimation ho moans that their exact num-bos cannot. be estimated) regard botting in no. sense as either immoral or sinful." This, the report declares, is thio view' that will appeal to the vast majority of the ople of this country, and to. the large majority of trily Christian mon. Th. also says that the Committee-did not go too minutely' into consideration of morals, On this we may remark, (a) That they did not go into the consideration of morals at all. Mr. Cecil Wilson raised the question immediately before my own! examination, on the ground that} it was impossible to discuss ques tions of morality unless we knew on what moral grounds any action was approved or discussed. The Chairman declared that he should tule out of order abstruse] questions of theological belief or moral code of that nature," Mr. Morgan Jones protested, and had the room elenred. but. the Com mission upheld the—Chuirman's ruling. So the Commission, having declined.to discuss the moral question, had no competence to report. upon it.
The statement is directly! contradicted by the one on, the previous page to the effect that members of the Free Churches regard betting as immoral in itself, asin and an offence against the bined afreet with other types of hotting were added the number fell below 400 in all, 'The sistant' Commissioner from Scotland Yard estimated the street hookmakers of London atone xt 900, Hence it is clear that the Inland Revenue returns ave no guide oft all to the takings of ready money bookmakers. Yot the income tax figure, with trifling nddion for those below the taxable line, is taken us the basis of a quite futile calculation whish lands its author in the conclusion that the average profits of all bookifiakers average £300 per annum, which even he sees to be absurd. The results would be yet more ridiculous if it were noi stated that the credit bookmaker works on a. droit of half per cent., and. thy course hookmaker on "one, if not more than two, per cent: 'These atarting conclusions. are apparently used on statements submitted: by hookmakers in camera. Tt is not likely that these gentlemen are more modest' or more careful about their figures la camera thin when writing to the public Press, and T have dealt, in the "Man chester Guardian," with some of the figures of the Secretary of the Turf Guardian Society, and of the Secretary of the National Sporting League, and had no difficulty in proving hem to be absurd." Also T offered figures, fully. substantiated to the Com: mission which would effectually have prevented so absurd an estimate but for tht Chairman's curious and apparently invincible objection to what he called 1n-dividual cases. As if any. actual cases could be anything but individual. The estimates of the amount actually spent on batting are declared to be guesses and are dismissed as "almost valueless." Yet my own estimate (£160,000, 060 for horse-race hetting alone with probably another 80 to. 100 million for other forms of betting) is supported by the income tax turns, the estimate of the Board's expert, and, ax regards horse racing alone. the first. published estimate of the Turf Guardian Society, ud that of the Chairman. And my figures for profits have stood the test of long continued controversy in newspapers,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.