What Next?
Any one who has wielded his pen with the independence which you, Mr. Editor, have permitted me to practise must expect criticism, nor should he turn a deaf ear to it. Critics, friendly or otherwise, have passed judgment on my Christmas dream of sport, my hazy forecast of its future, and some have thrown at me the pertinent query of, “What next would you have us believe, ‘you veiled old prophet of Khorassan’?” My only answer to-day is that of the sucking dove. “Wait and see.”
In this new year I do not stand alone when the momentous question is passed round of “What next?” among sportsmen, politicians, and populations. Hard nuts to crack there are on every side, and we envy not the jaws whose lot it is to deal with some of them.
Sportsmen, however, are for the most part content to sail with the breeze—contrary winds are troublesome, and they do not like losing sight of old landmarks, albeit in times like the present they are being wafted farther and farther away from them. This their compass, if they will only stop to consult it, must tell them only too truly. Ought they to put back into harbour, or boldly dash on towards other coasts and new scenes, of which it may profit them to know more? Does it not behove them to live and learn in a wider sphere of life than when they started on their life’s voyage; and, as politicians would put it, to think Imperially, even of their sports?
Thus they must ere long come to see that in the unison of ideas, the blending of nationalities, and the gradual bridging over of our insular position, we are fated to learn, however unwillingly, that the past and the future stand in an entirely different relation to one another than they have been wont to do.
Sportsmen, I would appeal to you. Is it not in your inmost hearts a question of what next all round the country? It was, perhaps, a bold stroke on my part to advocate even the partial extinction of the bookmakers, the reform of the Jockey Club, and the use of the Totaliser, or pari-mutuel, so strongly as I did last month; yet common-sense, expediency and profit seem to put this in the forefront of reforms on the Turf in reply to the question which heads this article. Our object-lesson on this subject is, undoubtedly, France, where, since September last, the bookmaker as such has been totally excluded, and we are indebted to a very lucid and exhaustive letter from a French backer, in the Sporting Times, for a knowledge of the results of its first two months’ working. He tells us that, taking the race meetings of Longchamps, Maison-la-Flite, Chantilly, Auteuil, Colombus, St. Ouen, St. Cloud, Compiegne and Enghien, the sum of 5,927,318 francs (£237,092) more were taken at the mutuel than in 1904, the total takings from September 3rd to November 13th, 1905, being 66,917,515 francs (£2,676,700), against, in 1904, 55,787,910 francs (£2,231,516), showing an increase of over eleven million francs. It follows that the deduction of 8 per cent., which is made for the benefit of horse-breeding, agriculture and the poor of France, has brought an increase of 890,368 francs (£35,612)!
If the same ratio of increased receipts is maintained through next year’s racing, the Societé des Courses alone will secure as its share of the profit about one million two hundred thousand francs! Stubborn facts these, which even the most inveterate Radical voter may take to heart in choosing his candidate for whom to vote, although for this election at least all votes will have been cast ere this article is published. If it were possible to gauge the probable receipts in the United Kingdom of the Totaliser as compared with France, we believe that the figures would considerably exceed those of France, seeing that the stakes annually run for in the United Kingdom, including steeplechasing and hurdle-racing, amount to not far short of a million pounds, and that race-meetings in this country are more widely distributed than in France. I am below the mark in calculating that at least ten times the stakes are made in bets, from which the deduction of 8 per cent, would produce a sum of eight hundred thousand a year.
What would the poor, the sick and the honest unemployed give for a dole out of this fund?
What would oppressed agriculture, unendowed horse-breeding, or the poor Royal Agricultural Society, say to the chance of a dip into this lucky bag? In almost every other country besides our own where racing flourishes, such an opportunity of effecting an economic reform, without increasing taxation, or interfering with vested interests, has been hailed with delight. In fact, we stand alone as a civilised nation in our abstention from its adoption, yet we have not, as it would seem, the motive power. If our conscientious objectors could but be made to see that by its adoption the worst features of our gambling pursuits would be checked, if not abolished, and that true sport in all its branches would thrive under its ægis, perhaps our legislature would throw no obstacles in its way. Perhaps then our Jockey Club, always so slow to lead the way, would throw off their vis inertia and become its disciples?