Again, it may be said that the English Government put an end to one form of gambling, still prevalent on the Continent, with complete success. Lotteries were put down by Act of Parliament, and the trade of the lottery-ticket jobber summarily stopped. That is true enough, but there is no analogy between a step of this kind and stopping gambling in actually existing securities. If lottery loans themselves had not been discontinued, it would have been impossible for any Government to stop the pernicious dealing in lottery tickets. If we could stop all issues of securities, wipe off the National Debt, Municipal debts, the intolerable burdens of Colonial debts, and turn all joint-stock undertakings into communistic organisations, there would be an end of Stock Exchange gambling, at least in any form now familiar to the public; but short of that I do not see how the legislature can interfere with effect without creating other, and perhaps worse, evils than those it sought to abolish. An example of legislative powerlessness has been furnished by recent efforts at joint-stock company law amendment. The Act of 1900, which was going to do so much to purify the atmosphere and limit the ravages of the unscrupulous promoter and his “front page” guinea-pigs, has really increased the mischief, as I have already pointed out. Gambling might be diminished were the State to increase the taxes upon speculative transactions, although I am doubtful; but any such increase would rather tend to emphasise the absurdity of the Gaming Acts. Through these Acts it is possible now for any speculator to repudiate his obligations, and cases frequently arise in the Law Courts where losses are in this way repudiated. Possibly the law might be able to put down outside speculative agencies, which do an incalculable amount of mischief, and yet even there difficulties stand in the way. Are newspapers to be forbidden to insert the advertisements of these “bucket-shops”? Will the Post Office refuse to transmit their circulars? How far is it legitimate or safe, let alone wise, for the State to interfere in order to protect the fool from the consequences of his own folly? I cannot solve the problem; it perplexes me much and often, but the longer I think things over the less am I inclined to invoke the aid of the State in order to put an end to this social canker.