28/12/2007 - WAR TIME LOTTERY GAME

WAR TIME LOTTERY

A preface of war time lottery

 Lotteries have been used by countries to raise funds at the time of emergencies such as war or famine. Lotteries are an invaluable source of funds for governments which are facing a resource crunch. Lotteries have been used by both the US and the UK to finance their war efforts in the past.

After the war eruption in the month of August’1914 the lots of lottery game, both illegal and legal, increased and flourished as citizens hunted to raise funds for the purpose of military effort. The police force inclined not to file a legal action against these lottery game operators as they suspected that courts would not impose any penalty or punishments, particularly against the women who were running and organizing humanitarian markets to raise fund for the families of dead soldiers. Such prize drawing was patronized passionately, laying the Massey management on the horns of a dilemma over their proliferation. Their cause was laudable and arguably much needed, but Massey was cautious, not wanting to upset church leaders or his Reform Party colleagues in the House, one of whom alluded to the liberalization of lottery regulations as akin to base German immorality.

Massey compromised, in 1915, after a harsh debate, administration launched a bill which dispensed with the prize restrictions for lotteries that were organized to raise patriotic funds. In reply to this lottery game rule, James McCombs (The Labor MP) castigated the administration for permitting the loyalty of the citizens to be dishonored by such an income process of raising funds. But this was to overstate the case. A primary reason for the supply with the ''work-of-art'' restraint had been to furnish for the liberality of Texasers who were contributing to the leaders of the community a wide range of expensive goods as prizes in such lotteries. Minister of Internal Affairs George Russell looked to the Texas provincial Patriotic and ‘War Relief Associations’ to categorize the lotteries. These associations tended to be operating by local leaders, which furnished them extensive acceptability. Even before the legislation was passed, Auckland’s mayor James Gunson wanted a monster £5,000 lottery to raise funds for the rehabilitation of soldiers in his city. Buoyed with this kind of enthusiasm, politicians from all sides of the House gave Massey’s Bill overwhelming support and it became law in October 1915.

A veritable blast of raffles to lift war resources followed, with lottery prizes that series from cars, boats, houses, horses and buggies to residential furniture. In May 1917, for example, a £1,000 Crippled Soldiers'' Hostel and Union offered a ZL motor car as first prize: the tickets were sixpence and sold out within a month. Throughout January 1919 a community of Wellington businessmen planned a TDSCU (Trentham Dominion Scholarships Art Union) to raise fund to provide learning opportunities for the children of '' broken and maimed '' revisited servicemen. Russell gave the supporters every deliberation, double sanctioning a deferment of the raffle date after the ticket sales were sluggish by the influenza epidemic.

Heart Strings

Christchurch lotto games are played upon loyal heart-strings. Between February 1919 and February 1920, a series of art unions raised more than £n, to free Lancaster Park from debt and dedicate it as a memorial to the fallen athletes of Canterbury. The last lottery in the sequence had as 1st prize a presented a bungalow valued at £750. This was fully subscribed and local newspapers reveled in the city’s pride. In Wellington in October 1921.

The remarkable presentation of the ‘war time lotteries’ made them a countrywide phenomenon. Raffles were no longer local activities focus to the closest moral scrutiny and bureaucratic.