COMMON GAMING HOUSES (AMENDMENT) BILL

[Mr SPEAKER in the Chair]

Order read for resumption of debate on Question [12th May, 1960], "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Question again proposed.

2.31 p.m.

Mr Thio Chan Bee (Tanglin): Mr Speaker, Sir, yesterday the Minister for Labour and Law referred to the fact that in the United Kingdom Parliament was passing a Bill legalising public betting shops. He did not say, however, that in England public lotteries are illegal. Now, this Bill before the House makes public lotteries legal. So at one fell swoop the Singapore Government tries to get as much money as possible from those who are already patronising the illegal bookmakers and those who can be attracted to patronise the new betting shops and buy public lottery tickets that will be issued by approved racing clubs or associations.

The Minister for Labour and Law (Mr K. M. Byrne): You kill two birds with one stone.

Mr Thio Chan Bee: Sir, if they are really in earnest about helping the masses, they should make one experiment first to see whether the effects are good or bad. If the results are good, then perhaps they could embark on the second experiment. Instead, at one fell swoop they are introducing public gambling on a big scale.

I am sure those of us who were here during the Japanese military occupation will remember that they had public lotteries regularly; so regularly that after a period of enthusiasm people began to be wiser and the tickets had to be sold by the Chamber of Commerce and the One-Star, Two-Star, and Three-Star men. They had legalised gambling dens in amusement parks. And we remember the people found hanging behind some of these parks and in lanes, because they had lost money in gambling.

Sir, in the face of that kind of evidence, we are now going back to make the same kind of experiment on a big scale!

Yesterday I was accused of being out of touch with reality because I live in the atmosphere of Moral Rearmament. Sir, that is far from the truth. Instead of being out of touch with reality, I must say that I am far more so now. I realise that everybody, deep down, is selfish unless he has a change of heart. Whether a man is a Communist, a capitalist or a socialist, or by whatever label he calls himself, deep down he is selfish. And if we say that a capitalist is selfish because he wants money, the Communist is selfish because he wants power. So basically we are selfish unless we go through a period of change.

Now, Sir, this seems on the surface to be a Bill to stop illegal gambling, but I am not sure whether the Government Benchers are saints. Being realistic - I know not all, but perhaps a few are approaching sainthood, and even then they would be realists - we admit that deep down the motive might also be selfish. Therefore, I presume that the $10 million is the bait that is attracting the Government.

Mr Speaker: Order. I think the hon. Member should be careful about treading on grounds which have already been covered in the debates on the previous two Bills. We are now on a Bill which seeks to legalise public lotteries and sweepstakes. I know the dividing line is a bit difficult to find, but I ask the hon. Member not to retread the ground we have covered.

Mr Thio Chan Bee: Sir, yesterday I was just about to refer to a well-known philanthropist who cannot be accused of having been out of touch with reality. A man who has made his way up from poverty to the top rung in business cannot be regarded as being out of touch with reality. But this man, Sir, had a different kind of reality. He was against public lotteries because he knew that the masses would fall for public lotteries, thinking they were going to make easy money. Thereby they would be deprived of their hard-earned earnings. He was realistic not with the object of exploiting the situation and the weaknesses of the masses, but with the idea of preventing them from going down deeper. His life, Sir, was distinguished by his efforts to improve the living conditions of the masses.

Sir, I refer to someone whose views should be more acceptable to those on the Government benches, who have declared that they are so socialistic that there is no one who is more socialistic than themselves, except the Communists. Sir, I am referring to Mr Tan Kah Kee. In 1947, the same issue was in mind - public lotteries in order to clear the slums. "We can clear the slums with State lotteries." I am quoting, Sir, from a paper that is no longer being published, the Sunday Tribune of 15th June, 1947. It was a burning issue then. I would like to read out Mr Tan's views as published in this paper. Said Mr Tan:

"Lottery, as we know, is one of the worst forms of gambling. In this case, its evils would assume such magnitude once it is started as to spread harmful effects not only in Malaya and the neighbouring countries but also in places far away."

Mr Tan went further:

"The ease with which money can be raised by running a lottery is due to the weakness of the people who resort to this kind of get-rich-quick speculation."

Sir, he was realistic. I am realistic.

"Wherever there is a lottery, the poor will use part of their money to try their luck."

Finally:

"The prize winners will benefit little from their luck. Money easily earned is easily spent."

Sir, perhaps the Government side does not agree with a practical and realistic man like Mr Tan Kah Kee about public lotteries. However, may I appeal to them on this basis: that if after their experiments have been tried out for six months, and in all honesty they find the effects are not good, will they then reconsider the question and give up those measures which not only produce additional revenue, but also produce other evils along with that additional revenue?

2.41 p.m.

The Minister for Finance (Dr Goh Keng Swee): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Tanglin has been speaking at great length and with great feeling on the subject of State lotteries and off-course betting. Indeed he spoke with such great fervour that I cannot help coming to the conclusion that he has been tormented by some kind of psychological fixation. Throughout his many and varied speeches, I have been trying to trace the roots of this fixation. So far as I can make out, he is troubled about two principal outcomes, which Government's measures would lead to. They are, in the first place, that Government intends to open hundreds and thousands of betting shops. When I interjected with the word "millions", he too agreed that we might open millions of betting shops. That is the first thing that has been troubling him. Now, may I assure him, Mr Speaker, Sir, that the Government does not intend to open even one betting shop?

I move on to his second fixation, and that is his fear that it would be our policy to encourage schoolboys and the schoolgirls to bet on horses. When I was a schoolboy, Mr Speaker, Sir, which was of course more recent than when the Member for Tanglin was a schoolboy, I did not get the impression that there was any desire at all among my fellow schoolmates to bet on horses. I attended the school of which the Member for Tanglin is now the principal, and I can only hope that since my graduation from the school standards of behaviour have not declined.

The Member for Tanglin went to great lengths to discourse on the evils of betting.

Mr Speaker: Order. I think we have passed the subject of betting. We are on public lotteries, unless that is the same thing. Mr Minister?

Dr Goh Keng Swee: I beg your pardon, Mr Speaker, Sir. He did say a great deal about the evils of gambling and generally the tragic consequences that this could lead to. I would have thought that, if he were genuine in his belief, he would have pressed for the abolition of all types of gambling, including the present system of sales of lottery tickets to members. But this is not what the Member for Tanglin wanted. He obviously has no objection if lottery tickets, possibly horse-racing, is strictly reserved for the delight of a few persons. But the point is that this activity is now practised on such an extensive scale that we cannot afford to ignore the illegal activities, which have surrounded gambling in general. It is because of this that Government is introducing this type of legislation. The Member for Tanglin praised the previous Government for resisting the temptation to legalise certain forms of gambling and to allow for its extension under controlled conditions. Now he is obviously either unaware of or unimpressed by the great harm, which has been done by illegal bookmakers and private lottery syndicates, which are going on on a very large scale. These are major problems which we have to tackle, because they are one of the sources of income for secret society gangsters, and the whole underground apparatus of a gambling organisation strikes at the root of society and demoralises a large number of people. The Member for Tanglin is only interested in the outward manifestations of gambling. So long as on the surface things appear decent, he does not worry about the evil that goes on behind the open facade. Although the previous Government did not take the measure, which we are now taking, the fact remains that gambling in all it forms, particularly in its illegal forms, has been on the increase all these years. And this is principally due to the policy, which the Member for Tanglin entirely approves, that is, to confine the accepted forms of gambling, such as lottery and horse, racing, to a limited circle and allow the whole cancer of illegal betting to spread all over Singapore. Mr Speaker, Sir, I find this attitude most deplorable, and I think I could best express my feelings on the subject if I were to quote from a book which is familiar to the Member for Tanglin. I will read from the New Testament, the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, Chapter 23, Verse 24:

"Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye make clean the outward side of the cup and of the platter, but within ye are full of extortion and excess. Ye blind Pharisees, cleanse first that which is within the cup and the platter that outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto lighted sepulchres which appear indeed beautiful outward but within are full of dead man's bones and all uncleanliness Ye also outwardly appear righteous as a man but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."

Mr Speaker: Order. I take it, of course, that that quotation has no direct reference to a Member of this Assembly. Because if it has, it is out of order. Will the Member assure me that there is no direct reference to any particular Member?

Dr Goh Keng Swee: There is no direct reference at all, Mr Speaker. It is just the reaction which I feel to the views which have been expressed.

Tun Lim Yew Hock (Cairnhill): Mr Speaker, Sir, yesterday we were debating on the Betting Bill, and as you have quite rightly ruled, the debate on this particular Bill shall not bring in any reference to betting shops. Sir, yesterday, at least, the Government had some reasonable excuse to introduce such a Bill. It said that it must wipe out the scourge of bookmakers. Hence the introduction of the Betting Bill - to wipe out bookmakers. But if, in the wiping out of bookmakers, it is later considered expedient or necessary that one should expand the activities of legal betting, then it could not be helped, one must face reality. But now let us face the reality of this Bill. This is to give legal blessing to a public lottery. It is not betting at all. It says that any person can now go and buy a ticket in a sweepstake, in a public lottery.

Yesterday, Sir, one of the reasons advanced for the Betting Bill was that there was no reason whatsoever why so much money should flow into the pockets of bookmakers. Why should not this money be deflected into the coffers of Government? But in this case, Sir, money has not gone down the drain nor into the pockets of anybody. If I were to buy a ticket in a sweepstake or a public lottery of a turf club of which I am not a member, yet the Government is assured of its 30 per cent tax. There would be no loss of revenue, even if the tickets were to be sold secretly and illegally to non-members. Therefore, this attempt to try to say that we should now legalise public lottery is just the thin end of the wedge. If Government is really so anxious that the money spent on sweepstake tickets by the public is money spent foolishly by the public, and if the Government is anxious to make use of or to cash in on the weaknesses of human nature, then it should begin to think. But perhaps it would be a wonderful thing if the Government could have a state lottery of its own. Then it could have the whole 100 per cent instead of a meagre 30 per cent. This kind of state lottery is evil. It demoralises people. It is bad for the conscience of any good government. And 1 say this, Sir: that in spite of what has been said by the front benchers of the Government, it is significant that their back benchers, although it was their wont to stand up and champion any policy of the Government, have been silent. Perhaps, Sir, it is not so bad that there is still a conscience in the Party members of the P.A.P.

Dr Lee Siew Choh (Queenstown): I am a back bencher, Sir, and I have risen up to answer the front bencher of the opposite bench.

An hon. Member: They do not have back benchers!

Dr Lee Siew Choh: As usual the Opposition always like to, as the Member for Cairnhill has just said, cash in on whatever they think they can cash in on. This is one of the opportunities, which they have. But I would not like to quote the Scriptures, Sir. We all understand what ultimately it really means. They try to paint a picture that they are real saints and that they are trying to protect the public. They try and claim that they can really do something good. Whenever a good Bill comes from the Government bench, they say, "We agree with it." Yet they try to pick holes here and there. And when it comes to an acclaim from the public, they say, "Oh, we also agree with it." When it comes to an issue on which public opinion may possibly be divided, they, of course, straightaway pick on the other side and say, "We are on the morally correct side."

This Bill, Sir, is really meant to control and not to allow an extension of public lotteries. The Member for Cairn-hill said that the idea of the other two Bills which, were passed was to wipe out the bookmakers, but that this was to expand betting. Surely he knows the extent of chap-ji-ki that is rampant in Singapore. He will also know, Sir, that a lot of people who are not members of the Turf Clubs have been buying tickets from members of the Turf Clubs. Cases have appeared in the papers where non-members have to go to court in order to sue for what they claim to be their own winnings. This is a common occurrence everywhere. If anybody should care to go to any coffee-shop, or anywhere, they can always buy those tickets. Everybody knows that Social Welfare tickets from the Federation are sold very easily in Singapore. Previously, when the Member for Cairnhill was in power, they never seemed to do anything about it. And now just because it comes from the P.A.P. Government and just because we hope to control something which we know cannot be eradicated, they say it is bad. They talk of realism. Well, this is realism right through. They do not know what it really means. We the P.A.P. are realistic in contradistinction to the idealistic point which they are advocating. The Member for Tanglin also quoted philanthropists, and also talked about selfishness. Psychologically, everybody born is in a way selfish. But the difference between certain systems of government is that in socialism, if there is any selfishness in a person, we try and inculcate into that person how to learn and think of others. In other words, we try and think of things from a socialistic point of view. Just as man is now able to inhibit the other instincts that are inherent in him, so if there is such a thing as selfishness, we must also try and control it. That is the only way of advancement in this world.

The Member for Tanglin also mentioned the fact that this Bill was merely introduced in order to obtain revenue. Surely, he knows that Government have many other ways of getting revenue. In addition, when he talked of the Government getting 30 per cent revenue from the lotteries, in actual fact. Government can gain much more revenue from the sale of liquor. What about revenue from the bar houses? What about revenue from samsu, liquor and even opium, if you like, which is not allowed? Why is he not raising any objection to the sale of liquor? The amount of revenue that Government gains from the sale of liquor is very, very great indeed. Surely the Member for Tanglin does not want us to go back to the time, if I may say so again, Sir, when his father was telling him about Johore Bahru and that people had to go across the Causeway in order to indulge in a little bit of gambling. Gambling is in the blood of everybody. If we cannot get rid of it, let us at least try and control it. If in controlling it we get the condemnation of the opposite side, then we say, to put it kindly, that they have a special bee in their bonnet, or that they are merely burying their heads in the sand.

Mr Speaker: Mr Byrne, in reply?

3.02 p.m.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, I notice that we have been condemned because, as practical men of affairs, we have sought to have two bites at a cherry at the same time. Mr Speaker, Sir, everybody in Singapore knows this. It is strange that the Members on the Front Bench opposite are the people who appear not to know what everybody in Singapore does know. The public gambling situation in Singapore has two aspects. There are the organisers of bookmaking. There are also the organisers of public lotteries. The organisers of public lotteries are those who promote games like chap-ji-ki, tikam ekor, three digits, four digits, or what have you. They are everywhere in Singapore. They are operating within 50 yards of this Assembly House. Everybody knows that. We have got to deal with that situation.

The Member for Tanglin is a moralist and thinks that gambling is quite wrong. We as socialists also say that gambling in Singapore is a social evil. But look at the situation that we find in Singapore. From 1929, there has been legalised gambling in Singapore. The exemption under the Betting Ordinance has been an exemption that we have not introduced. It has `been part of our very lives from 1929. Look at the position of the Turf Club itself. The Club is licensed to carry on gaming, which is restricted to its members. It has three types of membership. There are ordinary members, there are subscribing members, and there are associate members. It could be said that the ordinary members are people who really go there to enjoy the sport of racing. They gamble, but they also take an interest in horse-racing as a sport. The subscribing members go there to bet. They pay a fee of $15 a year. The Government gets a tax of about $5.20 as, entertainment duty. There are the associate members. These people are not permitted on the course. They go there just to participate in the sweepstakes. They are there only for that purpose. It is common knowledge that anybody can go to the Turf Club - he need not be a member - and participate to his heart's delight in gambling if he wants to do so and if he has got that inclination. It is as simple as all that. They pass their badges, to one another to go in. That is the situation which my friend and colleague has just referred to. That is the veneer of respectability. So long as there is that veneer of respectability, the Member for Tanglin is most satisfied. He can go to church and pray all the harder for it. Mr Speaker. Sir, that is the position which we find in Singapore. Coupled with that, there are organisers of public lotteries elsewhere who send their lottery tickets to us. You can go to any petrol kiosk at any time you want. You buy petrol. You can also buy lottery tickets emanating from else- where. That is the situation we find in Singapore. We are socialists. We regard gambling objectively as a social evil. Something must be done about all this. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and say, "Well, God is in heaven and everything is right in the world." We are not that sort of people. That is why we have taken the trouble to introduce the Betting Ordinance to make it difficult for these operators to continue to operate. We have looked very closely into the Common Gaming Houses Ordinance, and we find that the provisions there are sufficient for us to deal with the situation. We are now running all these operators to earth. Is it not better for us to try and control the situation? These are the facilities available in the Turf Club. What we do is to accept the facts as they are. We say, "Well, if that is so, let us extend these facilities." We go for all the clandestine organisers of these types of public lotteries and extend the facilities available at the Turf Club to all and sundry. That is the realistic way of doing things. Why allow these chaps to continue to get huge profits from all this illegal bookmaking? Surely that would be stupid on our part. The other alternative is this. Close down the Turf Club. They go elsewhere, just across the causeway. They operate in the same way. What control do we have over the situation then? We are not talking sense if we do that.

Mr Speaker, Sir, when hon. Members say that gambling is evil, demoralising and bad for the conscience, we, the socialists, say that that is so. We have never come here and said that there is any justification for public gaming. We accept the situation as it is and are trying to bring it under effective control and to check all these demoralising influences on our society.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would also like to refer to what the Member for Tanglin has suggested. He says that once this Bill is passed into law, there is nothing to prevent lotteries, emanating from elsewhere, being sold publicly in Singapore. He has not properly looked at the clauses of this Bill. It is quite clear that only tickets sold by an exempted club will not be regarded as tickets that are part of a public lottery. This is clearly stated in one of the clauses.

Mr Speaker, Sir, that is the position. We are realists and we have therefore to introduce the Bill to try and bring the situation under control. It has been said just now by the Member for Tanglin that I mentioned to this House yesterday that the House of Commons has passed legislation to permit betting houses to be established in England. But in England they have not gone as far as we are proposing to do. Public lotteries are still illegal in England. But, Sir, we have a different situation here. I do not know what the situation in England is. They there are facing up to their own internal problems. We face up to our own problems. It is quite clear that it would be futile, senseless and stupid on our part if we only went against the bookmakers and left the people who promote chap-ji-ki, tikam ekor and other forms of public gaming alone. Mr Speaker, Sir, we have listened to all that has been said on this matter. Some have got emotional about it. We are rational people. So far, we are quite convinced in our minds that this is the best that we can do in the present situation.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole Assembly.

Assembly immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill.-[Mr Byrne].

Bill considered in Committee.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

3.12 p.m.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2-

Question proposed, "That clause 2 stand part of the Bill."

Mr Thio Chan Bee: Sir, in clause 2 the new section 23, line 4, there is the word "any":

" ... it shall not be an offence for any person to buy a ticket or chance or take part in any public lottery held, promoted, ...".

Sir, it was put forward that children in school would not have the chance to buy lottery tickets. If these lottery tickets are on sale and if it is not an offence for any person to buy a ticket, how are the young children to be prevented from buying them? I would like the Minister for Labour and Law to answer that question and tackle the problem seriously. Sir, I have been accused of not facing up to realities. As a schoolmaster with 40 years' experience, I know the habits of boys' very well. During this period of 40 years, things have changed considerably. We have got secret societies organised in schools all over Singapore. That is a reality, which we face today. We know that some boys in some schools are also conducting gambling on their own. If today they do anything like that or they buy lottery tickets which are illegal and they are reported, action is taken against them and the practice stops. But once this Bill becomes law and a schoolboy buys 20 tickets and he sells them to his friends to share the fortune that is supposed to come, and if a teacher says to him, "Sorry, you are not allowed to do that." the answer is given to the teacher's face, "Sir, it is the law of the land." What is the teacher going to say?

3.15 p.m.

Sir, I am glad that the Minister for Finance quoted the Scriptures. I hope he will quote them often. But I think he forgot to stress the fact that when one studies the Scriptures, one has got to learn to apply them to oneself first. We should look for the mote in our own eyes before we try to remove the beam from the eyes of other people. I am glad that the Minister read a quotation from the Scriptures and I hope that it will apply to everyone of us.

Tun Lim Yew Hock: Mr Speaker, Sir, I find that I have to rise again to speak on this clause. During the Second Reading of this Bill, a Government Front-Bencher and a Back-Bencher tried to explain that it was necessary to have this Bill because Government wanted to control chap-ji-ki, tikam ekor, and so on. Sir, this is the only clause that is left in this Bill. There is nothing in this Bill to say that chap-ji-ki, tikam ekor, and so on, are to be controlled. The control is already there. So it is not right to say that this clause is introduced in order to control chap-ji-ki and tikarn ekor. But it is right to say that this clause is introduced to expand facilities for taking part in public lotteries.

Dr Lee Siew Choh: Sir, it is not a case of expansion but a case of rechanneling.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Tanglin has asked me to state whether it is the intention of the Government to prohibit or restrict the sale of public lottery tickets to school children and to young people generally.

Mr Speaker, Sir, it is possible for control to be exercised in the case of betting houses. One can make a rule that people of a certain age should not be admitted into such places. Administratively, it can be done. But in the case of the sale of public lottery tickets, it is not possible to exercise a similar kind of control and even if we try to do so, it would never be effective. If a rule is made that lottery tickets are not to be sold to youngsters, there is nothing to prevent older people from buying them and passing them on to youngsters. Even if it is ruled that a youngster will not be entitled to the prize money on the lottery ticket he buys, what he will do is to pass the ticket on to a grown-up person. So it is not possible to supervise such sales administratively in that way.

The other point made by the Member for Tanglin was that we appear to be wanting only to expand the facilities for gaming. Mr Speaker, Sir, I have taken the trouble just now to mention to him that these facilities are already available in the Turf Club. Three types of membership are recognised there. An associate member is a person who can go there but he does not participate in betting. He goes there to participate in the sweeps.

I think all that is one big sham. Let us recognise the position and say frankly, "Let there be public lotteries." I have looked through this Bill very carefully, Mr Speaker, Sir. Under the Common Gaming Houses Ordinance, there are sufficient powers to deal with the promoters of these public lotteries, like tikam ekor, chap-ji-ki, and so on. We have all the powers that we want. No additional powers are necessary. All that we have to do is to go for them and bring them down. That is what we are proposing to do. There is practically public gaming in the premises of the Turf Club and their tickets are sold to the public. There is a great difference, to my mind, between purchasing a lottery ticket and placing a bet in a betting shop. Although we, as Socialists condemn gambling - like betting and organising the sale of sweepstake lottery tickets - where is the evil really in buying a lottery ticket for a dollar or fifty cents? It is not as evil as going into a betting shop and placing your bets. One has got to acknowledge that people are human beings. All those people - even the person who places a bet or buys a lottery ticket - are not evildoers just because they do that. It is the people who promote all these things that we are going for. In our campaign, we will have to run these people in and we will have to extend the betting facilities. Incidentally, we will get more money. We acknowledge that. But we do not do all this with the primary object of getting more revenue. Public gaming has reach ed such proportions here that something has got to be done about it and we are taking this course. We hope that we will achieve the objects that we have in view. We are quite determined to bring these activities under proper control and that is why we are seeking these powers from this House.

Mrs Seow Peck Leng (Mountbatten): Sir, I quite agree with the Minister that the buying of a lottery ticket is not evil. I am not thinking of it as an evil. But what I fail to understand is this: how does Government hope, by this Bill, to suppress or catch or arrest or stop these illegal operators? Do Government think that, by having legal operators of their own, they are going to draw the public from these illegal bookmakers to their own legal operators? In that case, as I asked yesterday, what competition can they offer? What I maintain is that they will not be able to draw the crowd from the bookmakers and illegal operators to the legal operators. Unless the Government see a way of achieving that, I myself cannot see how this Bill is going to help them do it.

Tun Lim Yew Hock: Mr Speaker, Sir, I was indeed very disturbed to learn from the Minister for Labour and Law when he confessed that, with the operation of this law, the Government would not be able to control the sale of lottery tickets to school children. He said that school children can now buy lottery tickets. As has been pointed out by the Minister, it is only the members of turf clubs who can buy lottery tickets at the present time. No non-member of a turf club would be qualified to buy a lottery ticket from a member unless he or she has confidence' in the integrity of the member. Therefore, the sale of those tickets to a non-member is restricted to the extent of the integrity of the member who hopes to get a ten per cent cut of the prize money. But now to say that anyone - even school children - can buy lottery tickets within the meaning of the law is surely an expansion of, shall we say, facilities for gambling.

Mr Thio Chan Bee: Sir, when I put forward the problem to the Minister, I had hoped that he would have been able to find some solution whereby students and young children would not be able to buy lottery tickets and re-sell them. I am sorry he has admitted that it cannot be done and that there is no solution. Sir, we know that the young people comprise more than half the population of Singapore today. Fifty cent and dollar tickets are within their reach. Therefore, when this Bill is passed, it will enable school children to buy lottery tickets freely and flaunt them in the faces of their teachers, saying, "There is nothing, Sir, that you can do to prevent my buying these tickets, because I am not going against the law of the land." And that is going to make it very difficult for educationalists to tell them, "Boys, you must work hard. You cannot depend on luck for success in life. You have got to do it on the basis of industry," because they can very well say, "That is all nonsense. If I buy a lottery ticket for fifty cents and I can get $100,000, I do not have to study any more."

Mr Lim Cheng Lock (River Valley): Mr Speaker, Sir, no amount of legislation can prevent school children from buying lottery tickets, just as you cannot prevent them now from smoking or even visiting brothel houses.

Tun Lim Yew Hock: Sir, in reply to the last speaker, Although there had been no legislation so far until this Bill was introduced, school children had not been buying lottery tickets. But this Bill is going to encourage them to do so, because the Minister has now openly said that the Government will not be able to control them from buying lottery tickets. In view of that, the Opposition, Sir, will have to vote against this clause.

The Chairman: There is a certain amount of repetition. Perhaps the Minister would like to wind up.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, I never said anything of that sort. I did not say that we could not control. I said we could not control effectively. Even if we were to issue instructions that no such sales should be made to school children and young people, there are no means of carrying out those instructions. Suppose it was decreed that any youngster who, obtained a prize on a ticket would not get the benefit of that prize, such a rule cannot be administered. I said before that he wou1d just pass the ticket on to somebody else, possibly an adult, and the latter could collect the money. How is the situation different from that which we know today? Today, youngsters can buy Federation lottery tickets in Singapore quite openly. The Opposition is not fussy about that. It is done openly. There is no fuss about it. Then why all this fuss and bother? We are doing everything to bring the situation under effective control. If you want to deal effectively with gambling, you must recognise that human beings are human beings and that there must be an outlet for them. You cannot go for the promoters only and not provide an outlet. There must be an outlet. As practical people, we say that this is the only way of dealing with the situation as we know it today.

3.30 p.m.

Question put, "That clause 2 stand part of the Bill."

Tun Lim Yew Hock: Division, Sir.

The House divided: Ayes, 28; Noes, 6; Abstention, Nil; Absent, 17. Ayes. Noes. Baharuddin bin Abdul Hamid bin Mohamed Ariff. Haji Jumat. Bani, S. T. Ahmad Jabri bin Buang bin Omar Mohammad Akib. Junid. Lim Yew Hock. Byrne, K. M. Mohd. Ali bin Alwi. Chan Chee Seng. Seow Peck Leng, Chan Choy Siong, Mrs. Miss. Thio Chan Bee. Chor Yeok Eng. Goh Chew Chua. Goh Keng Swee. Abstentation. Kandasamy, G. Lee Khoon Choy. Nil. Lee Siew Choh. Lee Teck Him. Leong Keng Seng. Absent. Lim Cheng Lock. Lin You Eng. Ahmad bin Ibrahim. Lingham, S. V. Chan Sun Wing. Low Por Tuck. Fung Yin Ching, M. Ismail Rahim. Miss. Ng Teng Kian. Hoe Puay Choo, Ong Chang Sam. Madam. Ramaswamy, S. Koh, C. H. Sheng Nam Chin. Lee Kuan Yew. Tan Cheng Tong. Mammen, John. Tee Kim Leng. Mohd. Ariff bin Toh Chin Chye. Suradi. Wee Toon Boon. Ong Eng Guan. Wong Soon Fong. Ong Pang Boon. Rajah, A. P. Rajaratnam, S. Sahorah binte Ahmat, Madam. Tan Kia Gan. Teo Hock Guan. Yaacob bin Mohamed. Yong Nyuk Lin.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported without amendment.

3.38 p.m.

Third Reading

Mr Speaker: Third Reading, what day?

Mr Byrne: Now, Sir. Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Third time."

Question proposed.

Tun Lim Yew Hock: Sir, it is indeed a very sad day for the children of Singapore when they come to know that the Government, by this Bill, is encouraging them to take part in State lotteries.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, that is a very foolish remark, if I may say so, from a responsible Member of the Opposition. The Government is not encouraging the children of Singapore to buy public lottery tickets. I have stated repeatedly to the House that Government has looked into the whole question and is satisfied that the proposals we have made in this Bill are the only practical way of dealing with a very difficult situation as regards public gaming in Singapore. It is completely false and untrue to say that the Government is encouraging the children of Singapore to participate in public lotteries. The position today is such that there are tickets being sold openly in the streets of Singapore, and it will be no different under the proposals that we have in mind.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Third time and passed.