A Sermon Preached by Bishop Molony at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Shanghai, on Sunday, July 8, 1923
"Love secketh not its own." £. Cor. 13.5.
The proposal to tax betting in England brings up a subject which we are constantly meeting in various forms. Is gambling wrong? If so, why? Cannot the individual Christian indulge in it as a recreation? Should the State try to suppress it, or, recognizing it as inevitable that men will gamble, make revenue out of it, either indirectly by itself taking the place of the book-moker? The pulpit cannot ignore such questions.
Few people doubt the ill effects of gambling on the community as a whole. correspondent in the "Manchester Guardian" of April 23 last, referring to the results of the taxation of betting in New Zealand, writes, In the last ten years the amount passing aunually through the totalizator has multiplied by five times, and now thei expenditure averages £10 a year for every man, woman, and child in the country."' There is no doubt that, where Government has recognized gambling the people have been encouraged to gamble. But the Government in England has constantly endeavoured to restrict the practice, and limit its il} effects; among the latest acts is that passed in 1906 to prevent persons loitering in streets or public places for the purposes of bookmaking, under which there were 3,200 prosecutions in London alone last year. And in 1920 an Act was passed v0 prevent the advertising of foot-"ball betting business.
So we may start with this fact: the Englis! State recognizes gambling as a public evil. The only apology made for it is that in moderation it is a harmless pastime: and it is further argued that as the desire for it is nearly universal it may just as well he recognized and taxed for the public benefit. Alas, experience has shown that the evil will not diminish, but grow, noder a system of taxation. The tax collec-for is greedy, and in this case the tuw-payer is gull. ment. But "love seeketh not its own."
2.—It leads to idleness, excitement and debt. Most people don't gamble for gain, but for amusement. They love the excitement of having a little on, whether it is a game of or a horse race. They think little of tha folly of it, nor of the evil it leads to. Canon Peter Green, famous clergymen working among of Manchester, one of the most
the poor in England, wrote to "The Spectator" on May 12 and quoted the best authorities as estimating that before the war £70,000,000 was spent annually on backing horses, of which the bookmakers took about £50,000,000 and less than £20,000,000 was returned as winnings. And he asserts that there has been an enormous increase of gambling since the war. This opinion is endorsed by the fact that the Board of Customs and Excise, in its evidence before a committee of the House of Commons recently, computed the volume of betting as well over £100 millions, or £2.5s. per head of the population of Great Britain, It is perhaps the roast common cause of debt and that hopelessly wrong principle, that so called debts of honour" have a first claim, and must be paid even though your tailor and butcher and grocer hiwe to wait for payment for the food you have eaten. this code clothes you are wearing and the of "honour" is most dishonourable. But not to settle your betting debts is to forfeit your admission to the Club, whereas the poor tradesman can wait outside your back door, or does not press his claim for fear of losing custom. Is not all Christian principle clearly opposed to a thing that leads to such evils as this? The only honourable thing a man can do is to give up betting until he has paid his just debts.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.