A TAX ON BETTING. [To the Editor of the SeEczwroa.]
SIR,—I hope you and the Dean of Durham will have patience with me if I crave leave to deal with one or two points. Dr. Welldon's influence is, rightly and naturally, too wide- spread for it to be safe to ignore anything from his pen, and so, on the few occasions when he seems to me in the wrong, he must pay penalty for the affection and respect in which I hold him.
I cannot criticize his use of the word " recognition " as,
though he says he did not use it in the sense in which I supposed, he does not say in what sense he did use it. But, no matter how he used it, the statement that in a well-regu- fated community the State must be held to recognize all that it does not forbid and punish is not merely -wrong ; it is the exact opposite of the truth. In a well-regulated community the State must not be held to have any official cognizance of anything upon which it has not legislated. If a counsel tries to found his case on such a matter the Judge will say to him, " I cannot hear you upon that, Mr. So-and-so."
It is, of course, perfectly true that the evils of excessive drinking were more formidable in the distant days before public-houses were licensed. So were all social ills. But I cannot permit the Dean to elevate post hoc, proper hoc into a logical principle. I believe the improvement to be due to the creation of a healthy public opinion by men who were not afraid to call drunkenness a sin when the great mass of what the Dean calls " moderate, sensible, moral opinion " regarded it as natural to a gentleman and a proof of good fellowship. That the vested interests of the Trade constitute a grave obstacle to rational temperance reform is a fact known to, and admitted by, temperance reformers in and out of Parliament, licensing magistrates, and owners of large estates. More than once the Dean's own efforts for the improvement of our Cathedral estates were hampered by such vested interests while lie was with us in Manchester. And Mr. Lloyd George is reported to have said that no Government ever yet fought the Trade without being beaten. I do not want any future Prime Minister to have to say the same about the Betting Trade.
Dr. W'elldon says that he and I have been working for a better public opinion " with the result that " the evil is to-day greater than ever. Surely this must be a slip of his pen. He must have meant to write " yet, notwithstanding, the evil is greater than ever." Personally, I believe that the deplorable increase in gambling is due partly to the moral decline which has followed the War and to bad habits learnt in the idleness of camps and hospitals, and partly to the fact that gambling is now organized and exploited for gain in a way it has never been before. A leading bookmaker spoke the other day of " the whole vast industry which has grown up round the English thoroughbred." But if, indeed, my efforts and the Dean's to produce a healthier public opinion are as futile as be seems to think, then he and I, and all clergy and ministers, are a useless encumbrance on the body politic. Our preaching is vain. But I do not believe that for a moment. The creation of a healthy public opinion on moral matters is not only the first duty of the Church. It is the absolutely neces- sary, and only effective, preparation for legislation. Without it legislation is vain. By such creation of a new and better public opinion the slave was freed, duelling abolished, the horrors of child labour mitigated, women relieved of social disabilities, and all other reforms which have been effected made possible.
I understand the impatience of many good men, the Dean among them, at the action of pestilent reformers who will keep making people uncomfortable by condemning things in Ishich the plain man sees no harm. Such impatience has its toots in a twofold ignorance. First of all, most middle-class folk have little idea of the suffering and misery, the economic and moral harm, which gambling causes. And so they feel angry when asked to forgo actions which do not hurt them for the sake of " the weak brother for: whom Christ died." If they could once realize the true state of things, there would be no need to convert them. They would become one with Es, the pestilent fanatics.
And the other ignorance is that they do not recognize the difference between saying that .an action is morally wrong and saying-that the man who commits the action is morally wicked. But many a good man, from ignorance, thought.. lessness, or bad social environment, does what is wrong. Duelling is a sin ; would anyone -call Wellington -a bad man because he called out Lord Winchilsea ? Many a good man does wrong things in ignorance. And to-day many good men bet. It is for the Church to produce a better public opinion. Only so can the country be cleaned of one of the worst moral plagues which has ever corrupted it. So long as nobility,, gentry, and clergy declare that " of course there is no moral harm in betting as long as a man knows when to stop," so long the workers will continue to bet, with all the resulting misery, waste, sin, and wretchedness which meet me every day. When decent men and women refuse to touch the accursed thing with the tips of their fingers, then there will be hope for- the whole nation. For it is only by the creation of a more sensitive conscience that any advance in moral matters is possible. And without better men and women we shall not get a better world. Here is a piece of work to our hands. And I know none more pressing. I apologize for the length of this letter.—I am, Sir, &c., PETER GREEN,
St. Philip's Clergy House,
C.111011 of Mancheater.
6 The Crescent, Salford, Manchester.
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