Page:1930 QLD Royal Commission into Racing Report.djvu/50

 (d) Strathpine Turf Club.

This business also is proprietary, being owned by Mr. Jones.

The meetings are conducted by Mr. P. J. Frawley, who is employed as manager under a verbal agreement made through Mr. Austin, at a fee of £20 per meeting.

Meetings are held about once a month, on Thursdays, and consist of six events—divisional races.

Racing was started on 14th December, 1922, and annual accounts of its results up to 30th June, 1929, were put before the Commission. These show, inter alia, that the total receipts from all sources over this period, amounting to £16,239, were less by about £5 than the total outlays (£16,244) over the same period. The outlays, however, included a capital expenditure of £531 on a new grandstand and outbuildings.

These figures mean that a total profit of about £526 was realised as the result of approximately seventy-five meetings, an average profit of about £7 per meeting.

This will not go far towards defraying interest on capital invested, now about £5,000.

There is only one enclosure, to which the charge for admission is 10s. for gentlemen and 3s. for ladies.

At eleven meetings for the twelve months ended June, 1929, 2,518 persons paid for admission, an average of about two hundred and thirty per meeting.

The average attendances of the public over the whole period since December, 1922, do not exceed two hundred per meeting.

Bookmakers' fees for fielding (at present £5 5s. per meeting), have constituted over the whole period the chief source of income.

No books of account have been kept, but Frawley has kept accurate statements showing the results of each meeting. Copies of these were put before the Commission.

These documents show only the total receipts and the total balances, whether of profit or loss, after payment of the expenses of the meeting and Frawley's own fee as manager.

They do not show how, in the one case, a loss was made good or, in the other, a profit was applied.

It was stated in evidence, however, that Mr. Jones from time to time sent cheques to Frawley to cover losses and that Frawley sent his own cheques to Jones in respect of any profits resulting from a meeting.

(e) Ipswich Amateur Turf Club.

This is a bona fide club established about 1896. It has no printed constitution or rules. Its rules are to be found only in certain minutes of meetings.

These minutes, which cover a period from 9th January, 1900, to 18th April, 1903, and from 14th February, 1912, to 16th September, 1929, do not clearly distinguish between committee and other meetings, but indicate that there has been throughout a committee (including certain ex. officio members), which held meetings, that there have also been from time to time meetings of members, and that business has been more or less regularly conducted.