Having said something last week about the three or four
hundred thousand people who are parasitically employed in the betting industry (" industry" is an obvious misnomer, but I use the word for the lack of a better), I am glad to know that the Government is giving the matter its serious attention. The White Paper issued this week has emphasised once more the desperate need for increased production., and plans for importing foreign workers are being urgently canvassed. Yet here are these people, many of them pursuing the useless and worthless calling of pool-touts at factory gates, demoralising the com- munity instead of serving it. It will be very hard to find a way to turn this labour-supply into other channels, and it would no doubt require legislation, but for that I believe the Government would get wide support on its own benches as well as others.
* * * *
Previous page
