summary of the best specimens of applied art produced each year in England and abroad. There is no doubt that exhibitions are of value. Good work was done in the 'Home Industries' section of the Wembley Exhibition where the leading British firms united to show all the world what the modern craftsman can do. One may hope that the exhibition habit may spread to the provinces, so that the citizens of every town may know what their own craftsmen are producing, and take the personal interest in their work which is intensely valuable because intensely stimulating to any one possessed of the smallest grain of artistic power.

Yet the fact remains that people cannot, and never will be able to, gauge the true worth of modern work merely by wandering through shops and exhibitions. It is a matter of knowledge: knowledge not of what to admire but of how to admire, not of styles and periods, schools and influences, but of lines and curves and proportions. Appreciation is a craft, a habit of mind that observation alone will not beget, that comes only with patience and practice to those who would most earnestly acquire it. And far more than the quest of antiques is the quest of beautiful modern work exhilarating; for it is true patronage, influencing, even controlling, the lives and destinies of men and women. Indeed, as an adventure in Art it is surpassed only by the labour of those craftsmen-pioneers, by the actual creation of those things whose existence repays a thousand times both patron and artist.

ROBERT SWANN.

Art. 9.—THE TOTALISATOR.

In the early part of 1927, Mr Churchill informed a deputation composed of bookmakers, who had approached him with a view to airing their grievances arising out of the Betting Duty, that he was surprised to find how many high authorities there were who, opposed to the Totalisator twelve months previously, had changed their opinion and were urging that it should be adopted. That statement was in accordance with general knowledge. What had caused those high authorities' suddenly to alter their views? The Chancellor of the Exchequer offered no explanation. He may have refrained from doing so because the truth would have been unpalatable to the members of the deputation he was addressing, the fact being that bookmakers themselves had provided the evidence required to transform opponents into advocates. For immediately after the Betting Duty came into force in November 1926, the bookmakers, infuriated by what they considered an unfair imposition, boycotted a two-day race meeting at Windsor. The inconvenience resulting from this stupid demonstration was merely temporary, but it was sufficient to reveal the power possessed by the bookmakers to cause mischief and bring the machinery of the Turf to a standstill. It was immediately realised that the Totalisator was the instrument by which that inimical power could be wrested from the bookmakers.

While that incident was, no doubt, the primary cause of the conversion of the 'high authorities,' the service the Totalisator can give in other ways came to be fully realised in official circles as the result of an inquiry into the methods by which betting might be made to contribute to the welfare of racing and breeding. Hitherto Great Britain and Ireland have been the only countries in which, in some form or other, there has not been a levy on betting turnover for the benefit of the sport which provides the speculatively-minded members of the community with the opportunities for 'backing their fancy.' Wherever revenue has been derived in this way advantages have resulted, and it can be asserted that, so far as the principle is concerned, the levy in

volves no disadvantages. It can, of course, be unfairly or unreasonably exploited by Governments who demand more than their 'pound of flesh'; but policy and not principle is then at fault.

Why, then, did not the Turf authorities in Great Britain and Ireland obtain from this source a muchneeded revenue? The answer is that the law forbade. In 1853, Parliament passed an Act for the Suppression of Betting Houses, and the provisions of that measure have to this day prevented anything in the nature of organised betting on our racecourses. The statute, inter alia, made it illegal to keep a place for the purpose of betting with persons resorting thereto. To quote from the draft Report which Sir Henry Cautley submitted to the Select Committee on Betting Duty in 1923:

'Numerous legal fights have taken place over the meaning of the words "place" and "persons resorting thereto," with the result, speaking generally, that under this Act the law now is as follows: A bookmaker may carry on business and bet for cash or credit with anybody on racecourses provided he does not appropriate or monopolise any definite part of it, and give that part anything of the character of an office, as, for instance, by fixing a large umbrella in the ground or standing on a box.'

Obviously, therefore, buildings for conducting betting by the system known as the totalisator, or pari-mutuel, were prohibited, for they would clearly constitute a 'place' to which persons would 'resort' for the purpose of betting. Furthermore, it was not possible for racecourse managers to exact fees from bookmakers for the privilege of betting on their premises, because the payment of such fees would, by implication, have invested the bookmakers with rights which the law denied. There has been, consequently, no method by which the racing authorities could directly and systematically obtain revenue by levying a toll on betting transactions. The Act of 1853 was an obstacle which could not be circumvented.

The situation underwent a subtle change when, in 1926, Mr Churchill persuaded the House of Commons to sanction the Duty on betting-a Duty of 2 per cent. on racecourse betting and one of 3 per cent. on 'office'

betting. In order to facilitate the collection of the Duty it was found necessary to compel all bookmakers to take out licences. Although the Finance Act, which authorised this great departure from previous custom, specifically declared that it did not legalise anything which had been held to be illegal, the licensing system, and the collection of the Duty, indefinably brought about a great change. A big step had been taken in the direction of legalising betting. Mr Churchill did not then go the 'whole hog' and modify the inhibitory clauses of the Act of 1853 because to have attempted to do so would, it was supposed, have endangered his primary purpose of obtaining revenue from betting.

The time now appeared to have arrived when, with a reasonable prospect of success an endeavour might be made to secure, as in other countries, revenue in aid of the Turf by some form of levy on betting turnover. For many years the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association had been urging the desirability of tapping this reservoir of gold. Again and again, at annual meetings of the Association, Lord D'Abernon, the President, contended that a percentage of the money risked in betting should be impounded for the furtherance of racing and horsebreeding.

How necessary it was that a substantial income from this source should be obtained at the earliest possible moment was apparent to every one conversant with racing and with breeding developments in other parts of the world. Within the limits of the space available it is impossible here to enlarge on the amazing manifestations of those developments, and difficult also to convey to the lay mind an adequate notion of the way this country, the home of the thoroughbred horse, has been, and is being, handicapped in the effort to maintain its prestige and supremacy in matters pertaining to the Turf. That these advantages have not already passed from us is because great sacrifices have been made by influential supporters of racing and breeding in Great Britain and Ireland. One striking fact may be cited in support of that statement. In 1919 the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association discovered that, in 1913 (the last year before the War in which there was a full programme of racing), owners of racehorses in Great Britain pro

vided, in the form of subscriptions and forfeits, 62 per cent. of the stake money for which their horses competed. It was also ascertained that at that time owners in Australia were contributing less than 20 per cent., although at the principal meetings in the Commonwealth stakes were at a higher level than in this country. Since 1913 the position has changed considerably for the better, so that to-day owners furnish, perhaps, only 50 per cent. of the stake money; but in the meantime the percentage in Australia has been reduced to about 16.

The contrast with Australia happens to be a convenient one, but it may confidently be assumed that a similar disparity would be disclosed if statistics relating to the United States and many other, if not all other, countries were analysed. The whole world, indeed, marvels at the way in which English owners have for so long tolerated the burdens they have been called upon to assume. It may be said, and perhaps truly, that the rest of the world does not fully appreciate the Englishman's sporting instincts. Certain it is that the average owner in this country is compelled, under existing conditions, to indulge his love for racing with little hope of a monetary reward. An owner who died some years ago used to say that he was satisfied if the upkeep of his racing stable did not cost him more than 10,000l. a year.

If racing were an end in itself owners might not be entitled to much sympathy. The fact is, however, that directly or indirectly they are performing a great national service. Practically all breeds of light horses owe their most conspicuous merits to infusions of thoroughbred blood, and the degree of perfection and usefulness which the thoroughbred has attained is the outcome solely of the racecourse test applied to it for hundreds of years. When, by means of racing, the superlatively good colts and fillies have been revealed, it is obviously desirable that they should remain in this country for breeding purposes; but of late years it has become increasingly difficult to prevent their exportation, because of the tempting offers made for them by breeders in other parts of the world. It is largely because racing in other countries is on a highly prosperous footing, thanks to the revenue obtained by a levy on betting, that foreigners