PARASITES AND POOLS SIR, —Your editorial note with this heading wisely
emphasises the scandal revealed in the Report of the Churches' Committee on Gambling. We are, as a country, failing to exert our utmost productive effort while several hundred thousand people are employed in the professional organi- sation of gambling. Only those blind to the true interests of the country can doubt that something ought to be done, and that on the most effective lines possible. This being so, it is difficult to accept the con- clusion of your note that the immediate hope lies only in some voluntary agreement. Surely the Government are put in a very undignified and ineffective position when they have to plead with a parasitic and harmful organisation like the pool promoters to make concessions towards increas- ing production. Is there any justifiable reason why direct action should not be taken?
It is proposed to amend the Betting and Lotteries Act (1934) so as to
reduce dog-racing to Saturdays only. Then why not other amendments of a more drastic kind, calculated to reduce the number of dog-tracks and limit the hours of operation? By an amendment of the same Act football pools could be either entirely suspended or radically limited. The Home Secretary pleads for the maintenance of horse-racing in the supposed interests of horse-breeding and foreign tourists. Actually only a limited number of horse-races have any value at all -for horse-breeding and there is no reason why the Government should not limit horse-racing to these particular races and confine them to Saturdays. It is not less true today than during the war that our very existence is at stake, and we cannot afford to tolerate parasites.—Yours faithfully, E. BENSON PERKINS
(Chairman, The Churches' Committee on Gambling). 215 Abbey House, S.W. I.
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