If the Majority Report had been finished, it might apparently
have recommended a scheme for legalizing ready-money betting, for licensing bookmakers, and for imposing a duty of 24- per cent. on all stakes, putting the responsibility for payment on the bookmakers themselves. It was estimated that at the very least £200,000,000 a year are staked, and that the revenue derivable from these transactions would be about £5,000 MO, The estimate is certainly a conservative one. As a tax is said to be practicable, only the moral question remains. As we have often pointed out, since betting is not a crime, but rather a folly, it cannot be suppressed, and in our view it is highly desirable that a luxury which, as the evidence clearly shows, has spread with amazing speed through all classes, should be taxed like other luxuries. That, surely, would be not to encourage betting, but to discour- age it. We hope that the matter will not be left where it is.
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