The exact moral position of betting in our social life
has, we venture to say, never been better put than it is here, and we congratulate Lord Durham on his moderation, good sense, justice, and absolute avoidance of humbug and exaggeration. It is a strange reflection that when a man of the world and a racing man like Lord Durham can speak out as plainly and as sensibly as this, leading Quakers like Mr. George Cadbury and the members of the Rowntree family who are associated with him in the ownership of the Daily News and Leader and the Star should deem it no harm to publish furious incitements to betting—a public evil which they believe to be sapping the moral qualities of the nation. What should we think of Lord Durham if, after his speech, we found him at the bead of a company which sent lecturing tipsters throughout the poorer districts of the country to show men how to make successful books on races, orholding shares in a syndicate of advertising Continental commission agents ? Yet thousands of " purposeful Liberals " and earnest Nonconformists protest that it is a perfectly sound and virtuous act for those members of the Cadbury and Rowntrec families who own the Star, and who have said infinitely stronger things about betting than Lord Durham, to incite to betting in the paper they control. What would they say of the editor and proprietor of the Spectator if while denouncing poisonous literature he controlled a publishing business which made pornographic novels one of its "leading features "?
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