SIR,—The gambling issue as it affects and is affected by
the present economic crisis is rightly underlined by your correspondent, Mr. Magnus Wechsler. In stating his own personal reaction to the problem he writes as a gambler and asserts, "Let me say that, in the present state of the country, I should feel no cause for complaint if every opportunity to gamble were denied to me," adding his surmise that "the working man would receive the restriction or abolition of pools with the same equanimity as he received the restriction of American films." May I suggest that there is an influential section 'of the community consisting of public- minded citizens, not necessarily concerned either with the moral or ethical problems involved in gambling, who also realise that "in the present state of the country" it has become a national menace and as such should be drastically dealt with by the Government? Half the total amount of the turnover on gambling for 1947 (estimated by the Secretary to the Ministry of Education in a recent address to teachers in the West of England as a thousand millions) if directed to national savings would materially improve the situation.
But surely the time has come; indeed is long overdue, when the pro- moters of this shameless commercial ramp foisted upon the public should be directly challenged. They are "the squealers," as your correspondent
describes them, who are "among those who make large and (unlike their patrons) certain profits out of the pleasures and frailties" of their victims.
—I am, Sir, &c., J. CLARK GIBSON,
Secretary, The Churches' Committee on Gambling. 215 Abbey House, S.W. 1.
Previous page
