The Tote and Kindred Issues
AMONTH ago the tote club evil was described in these columns as a development of which Parliament must take early cognizance. The ruling given last week in the Divisional Court may make that step unnecessary after all, for unless a conflicting ruling is given by the House of Lords (in another ease understood to be pending) it remains established that the tote clubs at present existing are in fact illegal. If that is so there that particular matter ends. The usual nonsense is being talked about the amount of capital that will be jeopardized and the number of people that will be thrown out of work by the closing of these institutions. The answer to that is that it would be utterly intolerable for such clubs to slip into existence through what seemed to be (but is not, after all) a hole in the law and then to claim protection as a vested interest ; and that to contend that Money spent in maintaining a parasitic and demoralizing concern like a tote club is put to better use than if it were expended in the ordinary channels of honest trade is an economic argument too perverted for even a tote club proprietor to advance seriously. Nobody denies that the organizers of tote clubs will suffer financially through their disappearance—and nobody doubts that the community as a whole will be a great deal better off.
But that is not the end of the Divisional Court judge- ment. Much more important, because the consequences are much more debatable, is the bearing of the judgement on the question of the totalisator at greyhound-racing meetings. That was indeed the actual issue before the Court, and it is the decision that totalisators anywhere except on a horse-racing track are illegal that condemns & fortiori tote clubs claiming no connexion with any track at all. Totalisators at horse-races, it may be observed in parenthesis, are only legal because they were specifically made so by the Racecourse Betting Act of 1928; otherwise they, too, would no doubt, in the light of last week's decision, be a contravention of the Betting Act of 1853. The position, then, at the moment is that totalisators, whether in clubs or race meetings other than horse-race meetings, arc all illegal. That position can remain, or it can be changed by law. Till it is changed the existing law must clearly be carried out, as the Home Office appears to realize. It is a pertinent commentary on the claim of dog-racing to be regarded as a genuine sport—or rather, on the degree of sportsmanship inherent in the habitues of dog-races—that at some of the first meetings at which tote-betting was stopped as a result of the recent ruling racing had to be stopped, too, for lack of interest. There is more to be said for greyhound- racing in itself than that seems to imply, but those of its devotees who demand for it the adventitious attraction of tote-betting are entitled to be heard. Indeed, they are on fairly strong ground when they insist that what is right at a horse-race cannot be gravely wrong at a dog-race.
The attitude of the law towards betting is difficult, and can never be entirely consistent. In the eyes of the law betting is not a moral evil to be suppressed, it is a social evil to be controlled, and though the limits of control are hard, if not impossible to set logically, it will generally be conceded that if betting is to be acquiesced in anywhere it is on the actual course where the horses, or for that matter the dogs, which are being betted on are running. That is, in fact, the principle that has always been fol- lowed in regard to horse-racing. The totalisator has introduced a new factor into the situation, but on the whole it is a factor to be welcomed. With a totalisator there is no welshing and no touting. It may facilitate betting, but at least it does not encourage it. If there is to be betting on greyhound-courses it is better done through the totalisator than through bookmakers, but in that case dog-racing totalisators must be as rigorously controlled as totalisators installed at horse-races under the Act of 1928 already are. Even so immediate legisla- tion - regarding greyhound tracks (even if immediate legislation were possible) would be a mistake. The Royal Commission on Lotteries and Betting is about to report, and it is known to have been devoting close attention to the whole question of the tote. To sacrifice the fruits of the inquiry which a body so authoritative has been con- ducting for months, just as they are on the point of being garnered, would be unpardonable folly. The Commis- sion's recommendations must be awaited and legislation,- if legislation is considered desirable, be framed in the light of them.
A recent session of the Royal Commission invites other reflections on the efforts exerted in different quarters to make a larger place for chance in lives that can only be lived successfully on the basis of wise prevision and a calculated adjustment of means to ends. Certain daily newspapers—by no means all—have a heavy responsi- bility in this connexion, and the Commission was well advised to devote a day to that subject. The develop- ment of the modern daily paper is matter for an article in itself. It is enough here to deplore the effect of the fierce competition of to-day in driving papers to rely, as instruments to maintain and enlarge their circulations, on inducements utterly alien to the professed purpose of their existence. What conceivable connexion, for example (to take an actual case), can be found between the function of presenting news, with or without comment, and the offer of a prize of E15,000 to the reader who guesses correctly the total runs scored in each of four innings of a test match ? This, it may be said, is an extreme case, though an actual one. Let that be admitted. But the ease against the papers is even stronger when the whole mass of so-called competitions in which skill plays perhaps a 10 per cent, part and chance a 90 per cent, is surveyed. Chance is, of course, of the essence of the affair, for chance gives the fool as good a hope of a prize as the intelligent. So chance is enthroned and intelligence discounted.
But what, it may be asked, does that matter ? The question—whether it is well that the average citizen should be encouraged to increase the element of hazard in his life—is best answered by a consideration of the sort of life the citizen of the best type, particularly the working- man of the best type, may be expected to lead. On that point the papers that invite him by their lavish racing-tips to squander money he can ill afford are often the most eloquent and the most virtuous. The working-man, they affirm, is his own worst enemy. If he spent less of his money in drink (from which they derive a large advertise- ment-revenue) and betting (which they do all in their power to encourage) he would be well able to live on his perfectly adequate wages. It may be so, though such a dic- tum might come better from other sources. It remains true at any rate that the citizen of most value to this country is the man who uses his money wisely to secure the best life for himself and his dependants, trusting as much as possible on prudence and forethought and as little as possible to chance, and that any who incite him to an opposite course are enemies to the country's welfare. It may be hoped that the Royal Commission will have something to say on that in its report,
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