The Daily Press, Saturday, July 27, 1867.
13
791
18
The Gambling Licenses.
THE EDITOR OF THE "DAILY PRESS,"
Allow me assure you that you are representing us to the public, when you state on this point, that gambling is sinful. Why do the conscience of the Chinese is as clear as our own on this point?
Your notion that the gambling-houses are not gamblers, and are opponents of this measure. But whether they gamble or not, they are discouraged by the state of public feeling.
I frankly admit we met with rebuffs at first. Indifference was manifested in quarters where we hoped for a heartier support. "The thing is done," we were told; "it is too late to try to stop it now."
We discovered, too, that a portion of the public entertained the hope that silence about the corruption of the police force would be maintained.
I come now to the real reason for introducing this measure, and the only even plausible argument for it - the corruption of the police force. I admit that this is a serious and crying evil, and one very difficult to grapple with.
But I question if licensing gambling-houses will altogether cure it. If these men have been used to take bribes so long, they will look for them elsewhere when this source is cut off.
The present European police are miserably underpaid. Given the money, and a trustworthy police force might be maintained here as well as elsewhere.
Where is the money to come from? Put the Stamp Ordinance into operation. Raise a loan.
It is said that twenty-five gambling-houses are now open. What evidence is there that there are so many? High Government authority admits that this is a mere guess.
There will certainly be more tables, and more play going on in five licensed gambling-houses than in twenty-five, perhaps than in fifty, of the unlicensed dens.
In what way, pray, do you propose "to eradicate the evils" of gambling by this new patent system? The very places are "hells." Envy, covetousness, lying, cheating are at home there. Dishonesty, theft, kidnapping, burglary, piracy, suicide, and murder issue from their doors.
By what magic are you going to whitewash these nurseries of crime, and change them into homes of innocent amusement? Do you guarantee that the coolie who has lost there his month's wages, and has no money wherewith to buy rice for his family, will not rob his master?
Fully planned, quietly smuggled through Council, ratifications obtained from home by one means or another, the Governor has carried his scheme so far that nothing but the fear of a burst of public indignation stands between him and its execution.
But there are to be "Rules, Regulations and Conditions." It would be as well to tell us what these are, and how they will work.
Suppose that one of these limits the amount of stakes to be played for. Do you suppose it can be carried out? If the policeman now takes a bribe to wink at a secret gambling-house, will he have evil so thoroughly eradicated from his heart by the new measure that he will not look at a bribe to connive at violation of the regulations?
Depend upon it, these rules and regulations will be so many "wind-bags." The Governor cannot, on the principle of "honesty among thieves," do much to obstruct gambling after pocketing the $250,000.
And apart from the amount of licence-money altogether, a little reflection will show that gambling, if legalised at all, must be allowed its full swing.
The number of houses may be limited, but there must be in them full accommodation for the utmost extent of the gambling appetite in the colony.
Small licence-fees, and coercive restriction of the amount of gambling will both be found practically impossible.
As the brothel licensing system allows of an unlimited amount of prostitution in the colony, so it will be with the gambling.
Here I cannot but complain of the great unfairness of trying to find a parallel between the two ordinances, and to make the one a precedent for the other.
Everyone knows that the brothels are licensed, not to limit or control prostitution, but to raise revenue.
I venture the assertion that at least half the Chinese in this Colony are not gamblers.
It is almost as bad to call them a nation of gamblers as it would be to call them a nation of drunkards.
Statistics are procurable here, but I have not gone out personally to canvas them, but I have good information that many are averse to this measure.
Yours faithfully,
ES. TURNER.
London Mission House
1867