BOOKMAKERS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2561, 23 July 1909, Page 2

BOOKMAKERS.

■ ■ ■ ■ STRONG REMARKS B Y SIR GEORGE CLIFFORD. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, July 22. At the opening of the annual conference of delegates of jockey clubs today, Sir George Clifford (president) made some strong remarks in reference to bookmakers. He said: “The experience of the effects of legislative interference, which lias' thrust upon us the conspicuous presence of bookmakers uiion cur courses, has not lessened the tasta of all true sportsmen for this compulsion. It was fully pointed out before the enactment became law that to make a professional bettor a legalised portion of the machinery of the turf was fraught with many dangers, and that it tended to the destruction or weakening of many of the safeguards with which for the past 20 years we had been endeavoring with success to guard our pastime. The Act has/been powerless to deal with the abuses at which it was aimed, and has brought into renewed existence others which we had earnestly striven to suppress. I unhesitatingly affirm that the legalised connection of the bookmaker with tlio organisation of racing has lessened the confidence of the public and owners, and has exposed trainers and jockeys to temptations from which they have long been exempt. I sincerely truest that this pernicious law may be repealed, or so amended as to restore to our meetings the happy quietude and confidence of recent years. If it pleases the Legislature to invite the public to choose between the “trade customs” of the bookmaker and tlio silent honesty of the totalisator, we can at least resent the infliction-upon us of the invidious duty of selection among applicants for licenses. No committee of a racing club, however zealous, could adequately perform this task so as to protect, the public. Reform or purification from suspicion of any profession can only ho effectually organised within its membership. ( If we must have Jiccnscd traders in odds, they should guard their own honor, and prove their integrity to the world. Let them form an association, whose badges nlay be regarded as an indication of careful selection and trustworthiness, The business of men unworthy in the estimation of their fellows to obtain 1 the. badge would quickly dwindle, and we should hear no more of licenses stolen from racing clubs by the assumption of false names and similar devices. In practice the’ turf authorities cannot satisfactorily regulate bookmaking, and so far its professors have been inactive in that direction, and -therefore presumably unwilling. Wo say to them frankly : ‘We do not welcome them as accessories, but that we emphatically call upon them, for their credit and our comfort, to take measures for the effective exclusion of ’such black sheep as conspicuously discredit them.’ ”