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PART III.—RACING SECTION I.—CONTROL OF RACING AND TROTTING GROWTH OF DOMINION CONTROL 137. By a process that was gradual and not, at least in respect of racing, direct or summary, the control of racing in New Zealand has wholly fallen into the hands of the New Zealand Racing Conference and the New Zealand Trotting Conference. Under section 50 of the Gaming Act, 1908, the Minister of Internal Affairs is authorized to grant a licence to use a totalizator, subject to certain conditions, to any racing club. In practice, the Minister has made such grants only to clubs affiliated with one or other of the Conferences and upon the recommendation of the appropriate Conference. In the result, therefore, all totalizator clubs have come under the control of one Conference or the other, according to the form of racing provided by the club. Precisely the same condition pertains with respect to non-totalizator meetings. Under the Race Meetings Act, 1909, which does not apply to clubs authorized to use a totalizator, all horse-racing, except under the authority and control of a club holding a licence under the Act, is prohibited. Horseracing has been compendiously defined and has been held to include even a competition between horses which consists in walking a certain distance, trotting a/certain distance, and galloping a certain distance : see Ellison v. O'Halloran, £1916} N.Z.L.R. 935. 138. The authority to grant licences under the Act is vested in the Minister of Internal Affairs. He may, in his discretion, grant or refuse any such licence. Here, again, the Minister, in practice, has granted licences only on the recommendation or with the concurrence of the Conferences according to the nature of the sport promoted by the particular club. The dominance of the Conferences is thus, in practice, clearly established, and the importance of their competence, integrity, and impartiality'emphasized. 139. Both conferences are organized on democratic lines although they vary somewhat, probably for historical reasons, in their constitutions.. Racing is much the older sport. THE RAGING CONFERENCE 140. In every province racing was an early activity. In Wellington, Auckland, Nelson, and Canterbury in turn, for instance, a feature of the first anniversary celebrations was a race meeting, and in the 1840's and 1850's the foundations' of our bloodstock of to-day were laid'by importations of thoroughbreds, both stallions and mares, from Australia