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132. The action we suggest should take the form of proceedings initiated and prosecuted before a Stipendiary Magistrate seeking a declaration by him as to whether or not there is reasonable cause to believe that any telephone is being illicitly employed. It would not be throwing upon a telephone user an unreasonable burden to require him to prove the bona fides of his use. If the Magistrate is satisfied that there is reasonable cause to believe that the telephone is being used for illegal purposes, then the regulations should provide for its immediate and permanent removal. This process might be expected to operate, firstly, as a deterrent, and, secondly, as a means of securing the suppression of illegal betting through the telephone. 133. It appears from the evidence that to-day many private individuals allow their telephones to be used by bookmakers on race days, no doubt for an adequate consideration. Faced with the risk of the permanent loss of their telephones, they probably would not be very willing to allow them to be so used. The proposal, too, would make it difficult for telephones to continue to be used in connection with fictitious businesses. This practice seems to have obtained widely in the past. The number of telephones proved by the police in the course of prosecutions to have been in exclusive use by bookmakers in premises occupied wholly by them, but listed as installed in connection with land and other agency businesses, is striking. 134. The active co-operation of the Post and Telegraph Department with the Police Department should go far to eliminate the improper use of telephones, and if it did not entirely suppress the practice it would go far to minimize it. Certainly a condition would scarcely pertain in which the Dominion Sportsmen's Association's branches throughout the country are enabled, within a few minutes of the result of a race, to advise their clients throughout the country of the result of the race and of the dividends paid on the preceding race. 135. In this connection it may be that some strengthening of the racecourse inspectors' staff of the Racing and Trotting Conferences is required, for it seems obvious that, by some process, information is transmitted from racecourses to some convenient branch of the Dominion Sportsmen's Association promptly and continuously throughout every racing-day. Collaboration between the staffs of the Racing Conferences and of the Police Department might well suppress this practice. 136. Such other means of suppressing bookmaking as may, with advantage, be adopted are mainly in the nature of particular powers to be exercisable by the police in the course of their enforcement of the law, and are dealt with in appropriate places hereafter. If all other means fail, it may be necessary to have recourse to the expedient adopted in analagous circumstances under the Licensing Act, 1908, and other

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