FOOTBALL POOL PROBLEMS
Snt,—Owing to an accident I have been unable before now to correct some of the many errors in Mr. Robert Barclay's defence of mass football pool betting. May I, Sir, as the writer of the article criticised, belatedly reply now ?
Contrary to Mr. Barclay's beliefs, large numbers of the workers' own representatives bitterly oppose football pools. Among them is the lead- ing trade unionist, Mr: George Gibson, who recently stated: "I would close the damn things down tomorrow if I could." The attacks on the pools promoters at the recent Southport Trade Union Conference were far more violent than mine. Moreover, I carefully understated my case. The latest figures (Daily Herald) show that over 100,000 persons work for the pools. Of these the great majority, as I stated and as Mr. Barclay denies, are full-time workers. Nor, knowing the pool workers from the inside as I do, did I gratuitously insult them, as Mr. Barclay does, by implying that large numbers of them are drifters and the like. On the contrary, they are highly intelligent and sharp. Many of them did well in industry during the war. Some were driven into the pools by want. Writing from Scotland, Mr. Barclay denies there are pools in that country. Surely he is aware that big pools concerns operate in Glasgow and Edinburgh. For proof I refer Mr. Barclay to the pools advertisements in the popular Sunday Press. For proof of the Swiss comment on pools gambling I refer him (if he knows German) to the files for 1946 of Switzerland's leading German-language weekly, Die Weliwoche. These files may be consulted in ZUrich. My experiences with American friends have been different from those of Mr. Barclay. In any case, American gambling is not our concern here. Mr. Barclay defends the pools firms' violation of Sunday by saying that other firms do the same. But there is a vast difference between the maintenance of essential Sunday services and the satanic profanation of the day by large-scale work on anti-social football pool checking. I use the word " satanic " deliberately.
Mr. Barclay further defends the pools by praising them for providing work. Of course they do. So did Al Capone and his vast gambling and vice rackets. So do criminals and other undesirables. But even here Mr. Barclay is partly wrong. The pools, by creating imbalance, are actually causing serious unemployment. In Liverpool, for instance, new firms which have been encouraged to go to the area cannot get enough female labour, owing to the large numbers of women in the pools. One Mersey- side 'industrialist, according to the Liverpool Echo, said that he had been given the figure of 10,000 girls who had gone into the, pools concerns while he and others could not get female labour. This lack of female labour means unemployment for men. In Liverpool, according. to the Manchester Guardian, there will be a core of 10,000 workless men. To absorb these more new industries are needed, and many firms would be glad to use them if they could get the right proportion of women they would need in their works. It is the shortage of women which makes the male unemployment problem serious. And for this shortage and unemployment the pools promoters are to blame. To lure even more women into their pools they pay—or until recently did pay—a fat bonus to every pools girl who was able to entice another girl to join the pools staffs. Moreover, some pools concerns are now supplying shopkeepers with exterior metal signs stating that customers may sign up within for their football betting coupons. Other firms have supulied shops with metal cycle stands. Further, we are bidden to work hard. Yet next to the Work or Want posters on the- hoardings we usually see a huge football pool betting placard ; the contradiction is obvious. We see the same on buses, cinemas and other places. Calls for care' andthrift are followed by a football pool poster or film. And even on our very door- steps rival football pool canvassers carry on their promoters' policy of -adding to the grave lack of balance in our imperilled society. That lack of balance is further increased not only by the man-power and paper wastage of the pools themselves, but by the Post Office, railway and other man-power and transport wasted in coping with the 14 million pieces of football pool mail which flood the posts each week.
Mass football betting, which at one time I mistakenly condoned, grew up in the demoralised but comparatively wealthy society of the inter-war years. Conditions are now very different. That society has passed away, and with it the pools should pass too. But, to avoid distress and unemployment, their passing, as I emphasised, should be gradual, not precipitate. They should remain only as memories—memories of a temporary orgy of mass gambling and mass exploitation of cupidity, based on the defilement of clean sport—a defilement which Mr. Barclay' and the pools promoters publicise and defend as British sportsmanship.—
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