THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 74, 27 March 1919, Page 7

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By "KUSCOBIN.") POOR OLD BRITAIN! The stout hearty old person who once typified Great Britain in the person of John Bull is held to be a scandalous ineffective in these days of Efficiency Leagues and super-shopkeepers. He is derided with the finger of scorn by every little methody ranter as "Drunken ■Britain." He is subjected daily to the scolding and abuse of every lillipui. of commerce who sees in ginger beer the only way to financial salvation. But the bluff old gentleman himself if- unperturbed. He doesn't turn a hair. He lets President Wilson mouth lorty discourses on World Uplift and assure the highbrows of Boston that America did it all. He sees Russia blackslide from the fight as an aftermath of Prohibition experience and sink into a welter of disorder. His is the dignity that heeds no-t the yelping of lit le curs. He doe 3 not think it worth while to mention that for the three yoars, when Wilson was playing hymns on a cash register, he and his sister France were holding the front line for the protection and betterment of humanity. Xo, he just went on drinking the beer that wae his daily British wont and doing his bit. And now that the armistice is signed he still drinks his beer and lets the melodramatic reformers of America swill 'their colic cure and inject their morphine till the nasal fcwang of them dies across the waters like the last flaf, effervescence of a long-drawn lemonade. He has his troubles, certainly, lias this bluff John Bull, but he deals with them in his manly British way. Influenza comes, but knowing that whisky, good for the hale 13 better for the sick, he increases his tot to whatever extent his reasonnbieness may dictate. Poor old drunken Britain, God bless his hearty, manly soul —may his ehadow never grow less and we grow more like him. as clean living, liberty-loving, modest-drinking sons and daughters of a worthy sire.— (Ad.)

WE CAN'T AFFORD EDUCATION? A cry is going up—and a just cry it is—that our Educational System is being starved. Meanwhile, long-haired fanatics and self-seeking merchants go round the country mouthing Efficiency! Efficiency! Efficiency! Why is it that the Education Minister has to refuse salary increases to his staff? Why is it that crowded schools cannot be granted the extra accommodation they require? Why is it that the youngsters have hard asphalted playgrounds instead of pleasant green places for their recreation? Why, because the Education Minister cannot get the funds from the revenue. The same reply is given for roads, and the just treatment o*F our soldiers. Yet, in the face of all this, the public are asked to forego the million and n-half yearly revenue contributed of their own free will by users of alcohol, so that Dry Rot may reign and Profiteering be his Prophet. Stop it on April 10th, by a sane, sensible vote 'or Continuance.— (Ad.)

PROHIBITION PERVERSIONS. "What really happened at the outbreak of the F'.u?' . . . The Government closed the bars. . . . Because the Government's medical advisers insisted upon it. ... Because medical science dictated so." This conversational piffle is taken from a Press appeal of the Prohibitionist to induce you to vote for their political nostrum. What are the true facts, since they are asked for? The pubs were shut, certainly, so were the churches, and the picture theatres- and the schools, and the tea-rooms, and the barbers' shops —in fact, most shops. The drapers, who, of course, are so efficient as to be placed in a special class of their own, remained open. No reasonable person objected to the closing of the liquor bars to prevent infection, but the criminal offence wae that urgent supplies of spirits desperately needed to save the lives of suflfarers could not be bought in the hour of need for use by the patient in the sick room, except at a depot miles nway from the sufferer, and with the attendant red tape. The Prohibitionists advise you not to be a "simp." Better to be the biggest "simp" ever born tnan run the risk of bringing aoout the death or increasing the suffering of those in deadly peril—as wim done and would be done again if the Prohibitionists had their way.— (Ad.)