Page:1930 QLD Royal Commission into Racing Report.djvu/61

 The Commission considers that the burden of such compensation should fall on the other unregistered racing concerns (not including The Brisbane Trotting Club), whose businesses should profit, and not on the general community.

It will therefore be necessary to make provision for the fair ascertainment, by arbitration if necessary, of the amount of such compensation, for the establishment of a compensation fund out of the profits of such other unregistered concerns, and for payment out of such fund of the compensation.

The Commission considers that such compensation fund should be raised by the payment thereto of £5 per centum of the profits of all unregistered meetings, and that the moneys in such fund should be applied periodically to payment, with interest, of the compensation so to be determined.

During the course of the inquiry, a question arose as to whether, in the case of non-proprietary racing clubs, those persons who might be members at the time of the final winding-up of a club should be permitted to divide between them any surplus funds or property of the club remaining after discharge of its liabilities.

This question assumed greater importance when it appeared that the present members of the Ipswich Amateur Turf Club are only nine in number, and that these nine are conducting race meetings at a loss and paying such loss out of a fund accumulated while the club was prosperous and had a considerable membership.

The Commission has formed the view that all assets accumulated by racing clubs are substantially attributable to the contributions of the racing public. What the members contribute by way of entrance fees and annual subscriptions is repaid by the granting of concessions and privileges exercisable while the club is a going concern.

The surviving members therefore have no just claim and should not be permitted, on the dissolution of their club, to derive pecuniary benefit from its surplus funds. Such surplus should be devoted to other racing or sporting or to charitable or other public purposes.

This view was put by the Commission to the representatives of all the clubs interested in its inquiries and was concurred in by them all, no objection being raised to the enactment of legislation on the point.

It was generally thought, however, by the representatives present, that, on the winding-up of a club, its remaining members should retain the right to determine in general meeting to which of the above purposes such surplus should be allocated.

Such a provision is already to be found in the present rules of the Queensland Breeders, Owners, and Trainers' Association, and appears to be free from objection.

Legislation, if enacted, should contain provisions directed to preventing its evasion, by determining under what circumstances a club should be deemed to be wound-up.