The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-08-14
WAR LOTTERIES
 CONDEMNED BY
 CLERGY IN INDIA
Decision to Sanction War Loan Plan Occasions DiSap-
 pOintment.,

Calcutta. India, Aug. 14-A sharp cleavage of opinion has declared itself between the government of India, and possibly the majority of the British residents in India on the one hand, and considerable body of Christian missionaries on the other. The divergence has arisen. in conse- quence of the decision of the govern ment to sanction the holding of lot teries with view to swelling the subscriptions to the Indian war loan. whose slow progress has occasioned not little disappointment. The two principal lotteries are being run by the Calcutta Turf Club in Calcutta and the Western India Turf Club in Bombay, the modus operandi being the usual one of issuing large num- Der of tickets for small amounts, pooling the proceeds of these and in- vesting them in the various loans. and dividing the total, after deducting certain expenses. into a limited num- Der of prizes, some of them amount. ing to lakhs of rupees.
 By sanctioning these lotteries and sweepstakes, the government has ad- mittedly gone back upon the policy which it has steadily pursued for half a century, viz, a stern refusal to toll crate public lotteries. It is true that gigantic sweepstakes organized by the turf clubs have been run each year for many years; but by sedulously preventing any mention of them in the newspapers the authorities of the turf clubs were able to preserve the pious fiction that they were purely private affairs and, although the fact itself was notorious, the authorities were enabled conveniently to ignore it.
 Now that the lotteries have not merely official sanction, but encour- agement, the newspapers are flooded with loud advertisements booming them. and the public, under the dou- bIe stimulus of excitement and patri- otism, is supporting them in large numbers. Nor. until the voice. first of a single missionary, Isabel Angus, and then several missionary confer ences, was raised, was there the slightest indication that the new de- parture was looked askance at by any section of the community.
 The Calcutta missionary conference met recently, and decided on the fol- lowing remonstrance on the motion of the Bishop of Calcutta, seconded by the Rev J. D. Sinclair, a Scots Free Church minister
 The conference recosds its profound sympathy with the government in the present conflict, recognizing the mag nitude and the sacredness of the cause wl1ic his represented by the British and allied forces in the war, and de- 4. i~, { t0 support and to commend the war loan to the people of India, Dut it holds that it is unworthy of the government of India to have recourse in its own hour of need to methods of raising money which it has, for many years past, condemned as injurious and made illegal in the case of others The conference believes that such ac- ton cannot but result in gravely weakening an authority which is ulti- mately a moral authority resting on the moral standard which the gov ernment represents.
 The conference claims to possess an intimate knowledge of the mind and outlook of various classes of Indians and in making this protest against the official sanctioning of public gam bling it has in view not only the honor of the government of II ia, but also the interests of the people of this country, among large sections o1 whom gambling is already widely prevalent. In view of the fact tha the government of India have no op- portunity for any expression of public opinion before announcing it's sane ton of these schemes it is unfortu- nately only possible for the conference to make it's respectful, but emphatic protest against the action of govern ment, and to express it's earnest hopt that no similar sanction of public gambling will be given in the future. The Bishop of Calcutta also de- nounced the lotteries in a sermon preached in the cathedral.