A TAX ON BETTING
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
.SIR,—Your correspondent the Rev. David IL Tweeddale writes of " the existence of some moral and intellectual confusions " on this subject, which, in my opinion, in so far as these confusions exist, his letter only seems to accentuate.
He writes : " The hazard of legitimate trade and industry is one thing, and trading in hazards is quite another thing." If words mean anything at all, it can only be inferred from this sweeping assertion and his following remarks that the whole business of insurance falls in the second category, and that all those engaged in this enormous and important business, far from finding it " bracing to the mind " can experience nothing but " unsettlement and enervation."
But I must assume that Mr. Tweeddale, who lays such stress on clear thinking, considers the principle of insurance immoral. For if he were to insure his house, for example, against fire, he would in fact be accepting a bet from an insurance company that that house would not suffer damage from fire for a definite period. If he replies that in this case he has something to lose and that he accepts this wager as a measure of protection, then I say- that he is merely hoOdwinking himself to suit his own convenience—for at all events the company is under no such protective obligation in the matter— and he is guilty of that lack of clear thinking which he finds so obvious in others.
Allow me to add that I am in no way connected with insurance business and that I never bet ; but I do protest against having sins invented for .me by. Reverend Clerics and others, who, because they observe certain actions becoming a vice in a large section of the community, must needs label those actions sinful, although they are not thought to be so by the largest Church in the world, nor by the majority of people in this country. In conclusion may I quote the lines recently written by the brilliant Editor of Punch? :- " My view is: If it kills the soul,
Then stop the damned thing ; choke its breath ; If not, then let it pay its toll,
Like dogs and motors, beer and death ; Meanwhile our blinkered country takes
A lot of beating at the Hypocrite Stakes."
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