to any lack of opportunity for the vocational training of those who enter them. It is primarily due to the conditions governing employment. One of the greatest needs in the industrial system of the State is an organisation that will fulfil three purposes, the bringing together the boy who wants employment and the employer who wants him, the control of learners as far as is necessary to get obligations carried out, and the determination of the number of recruits to various industries to maintain their numerical strength, while also safeguarding the industry against overcrowding, with its resultant unemployment. When such an organisation exists, the provision of vocational training for skilled employment becomes effective in supplying the army of efficient breadwinners the State requires. Without such an organisation, there is a loss of efficiency in the best conceived schemes of vocational training. Generally speaking, the best type of citizenship goes with the occupations that call for special knowledge and skill. Vocational training, as general experience shows, carries with it a degree of civic virtue. There remains, then, the further problem of the training for citizenship of that army of the youth, who of necessity enter avenues of employment where no special vocational training is required, and where consequently the attendant civic virtues are subject to the accidents of social environment. 52 W THE GREATEST AUSTRALIAN INTEREST. By The Rev. E. N. MERRINGTON, M.A., Ph.D. HEN the Editor invited me to contribute an article to the Journal on the Ethics of Gambling, and suggested that the title should be that which is placed at the head of this paper, my mind reverted immediately to a scene in France at the close of the war. After the Armistice was signed the proscription of cameras was lifted; and one bright morning I was taking some photographs of the ruined church at Tertry. Rounding a shattered wall, I came upon a score of Australian soldiers playing "two-up." Their good-nature rose to the surface even above their interest in the game, and they were moving aside to allow the padre to obtain a view of the ruin; but I interrupted their intention by asking them to "carry on," as it was all "in the picture." The background of the French church battered almost out of recognition by the shells of Prussians the foreground of Australian soldiers backing "heads" and "tails"-with a grim reminiscence of the Crucifixion and the soldiers "casting lots"-all made a characteristic picture, best interpreted with a rising inflection of the lips and twinkling eyes, narrowed at the corners to kindly wrinkles. One "accepted the universe"-in Margaret Fuller's phrase— such as it was, in the clashing extremes of those times; perhaps because of the logic of Carlyle's rejoinder to Margaret's concession-"Gad, she'd better!" Everyone who knew anything of the war knew that the clause in King's Regulations which prohibits gambling in the army was interpreted as dreams used to be interpreted—before psycho-analysis became popular— namely, "by contraries." It was not really left to the war to show the proclivities of Australians in these directions. Australia is more English than the English in some ways, and the greater vogue of "The Melbourne Cup" than even "The Derby" in the respective countries is a case in point. The most patriotic of Australians who form an honest estimate of our character will admit that gambling has a powerful grip on the people of the continent. To the traditional practices of betting and gaming, various other rites of Chance have been appended, sweeps, lotteries (legalised, if not under Government patronage), art unions, and what not. Australians are interested in many things and major things; but, in the mass, they are pilgrims to the shrine of Luck. There is much in our conditions of life to account for this predilection. The colonists were of adventurous stock, "That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Emigrating, pioneering, mining, selecting-in short, all the main activities of life in a new country savour of risk and hazard. In the language of the youth of the world they are "just one big gamble." Add to these the contingencies of fortune or bankruptcy, the part played by droughts, floods, bush-fires and the pests which are so prolific in our great virgin territories, and you have the suitable environment for the gambler. Then sport comes in-racing, with its ancient associations of betting, the fascination of the horse and his lineage, the rival prowess of man with man in athletic contests, and the eager interest which the anticipation, the suspense of uncertainty, the meeting, and the verdict arouse, as well as the creation of the next "circle" of speculation regarding the subsequent challenge and its result; and you have a remarkably resourceful stream of pleasure for the enthusiastic devotee of such modes of recreation. But this preoccupation with the game itself is not enough: the element of backing one's fancy comes in, and it completely overshadows the simple issue of victory by the best competitor. So strongly does gambling invade sport that, whereas sport per se should rejoice in the triumph of the fittest, in modern estimation it is joined with the hazards of "odds," and the financial accompaniments of the race or contest in question. The tendency is for gambling to dominate the whole meaning and practice of sport. The factor of skill, speed, strength or ability which is the soul of manly sport is eliminated more and more by the admitted play of chicanery on the one hand and mere chance on the other. The confessions and exposures of fraud in connection with horse-racing and its attendant "rings" are sufficient evidence of baneful influences at work in that form of "sport" which monopolizes most of the attention of the public and most of the space in our newspapers. But the recruiting of the army of gamblers is mainly done by other agents of Chance. In the street, in offices, in factories, even in schools, the influence of the Lottery and the Art Union is felt. Sweeps and syndicates, which include the easy-going multitudes of young people who furnish a silver coin to the common stock, flourish on every hand, and train up our children in the way in which they should not go. It is well known that opinions differ regarding the ethics of gambling. The law of property is interpreted so literally by some as to give an absolute right to the individual to do whatever he likes with his money. Further, the uncertainties of life, the risks of fortune, the speculations of the Stock Exchange are quoted as condonation for staking something on a race or a prize. Marriage is a lottery, we are reminded; there is risk in every stage and enterprise of life and death; therefore we are fully justified in investing our means, or, at least, some trifling fraction of it, in any hazard which pleases us. Acting upon this suggestion, one may "hazard" a question. Why stake only a trifling fraction? If life is all a chance why not invest all in one big gamble? The reply is obvious. Prudence forbids; we might lose all, and jeopardise the interests of those who are depending upon us! But what has prudence to do with the case? The defence of gambling is based on rank Individualism. To go beyond that is to alter the major premiss on which the argument is founded. It is to recognise the principle that wealth or property is a social trust. That will carry us far in ethics. We are our brother's keeper. The common welfare must be our ultimate law. Further, we are not free to do as we like with our money. We may not fill a crucible with golden sovereigns and melt them into ingots with the law's permission. We may not export the precious currency save under certain restrictions. We cannot even leave our savings to our children without the State's imprimatur, probate and death duties. Our claim to gamble because we own is seriously impugned by the social order in which we live. And rightly so, because even ownership implies use and obligation. We do not really possess what we cannot properly use; neither do we convert our personality into a strong-room for hoarding, gambling and the like. The taxation of Australians is oppressively heavy since the war; but it is the unconscious philosophy of the gambler, the profiteer and the Bolshevik which has yoked this burden about our necks. It is an unnecessarily painful reminder that "we are members one of another.' The most extraordinary development of "democracy" in our Australian States is to be found in our undemocratic patronage of gambling. The British Parliament not long ago refused to establish a lottery to assist in defraying the huge war debts. But we find the Home Secretary of a State like Queensland, with a Labour Government in power, admitting to a deputation on the subject of gambling that "The Golden Casket is now a matter of Government policy"! This lottery, with a first prize of £5000, is fathered by those who represent the more equal distribution of wealth and a premium on production! Gambling is opposed to the first principles of democracy. It rewards in the most inequitable manner, viz., by chance, those who have done nothing to produce such wealth; and, to do so, it takes the hard-earned money of the many to enrich the few. It elicited from the able Governor of the State the protest that he did "not for a moment believe that charity need seek support from the crooked arm of ugly hazardry." The idea that the support of hospitals justifies resort to questionable means of raising money is another ethical and economic fallacy which can easily be exposed. The true wealth of a nation is the character of its citizens, and whatever mars that is the hugest debit to its moral and ultimately economic estate. The foundation of financial credit and stability is confidence. Integrity is the final asset in business relationships. Character is the gold reserve of the Commonwealth. And it is because gambling destroys character that it is one of the worst foes of the State. Ethics and economics are closely connected. The effect of gambling is not merely to produce a habit of excessive indulgence, but to slacken the driving wheels of industry and initiative. It paralyses proper energy and distorts economic standards. As Francis Bacon said, "A gamester, the greater master he is in his art, the worse man he is.' All experience goes to show that the hardened and inveterate gambler is dehumanised of many noble qualities. The late Professor William James, of Harvard, suggested the application of the "Pragmatic Method" to difficult problems of philosophy. What difference would it make to human life if each alternative in turn were regarded as true? What is the practical value of the distinction between the affirmative and the negative? This test is useful in settling many age-long differences in ethics and metaphysics, and even in economics. The tendency of our time is wholly in favour of its application. Prohibition of intoxicants made little practical progress until the moral and sentimental arguments in favour of abstinence were subordinated to the aspects of national efficiency and economic welfare. Then it advanced in the countries where it was put to the actual test by leaps and bounds. So with public health and hygiene. The old adage "prevention is better than cure" is now a sacred and inspirational watchword of applied science. The belated efforts of the family physician are wholly subordinated to the campaign against epidemics. The eradication of fruit |