N.Z. ALLIANCE ACCEPTS LIQUOR CHALLENGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 246, 17 October 1922, Page 7

N.Z. ALLIANCE ACCEPTS LIQUOR CHALLENGE.

I The liquor traffic, in the Auckland ' "Star," and in other papers, challenges the N.Z. Alliance to produce "any evidence that the Americans have ever voted or had an opportunity of voting upon the question of National l'lohiljj-i tion." i WHO PUT IT THERE? J President Harding, of the U.S.A., said ; , on July 4 last, at Marion. Ohio: "The Eighteenth Amendment denies to a i minority a fancied sense of personal i I liberty, but the amrndmnt in the irill of] America, and must be bus!ainet! by the Government nnd public opinion." Chief Justice W. 11. Taft, of the I'.S.A.. is on . record that the amendment is an "over- < whelming ronstitutional expression of,' the people." Although attacked from every conceivable angle ljy the liquor.: ' interests the amendment lias, by the < T* S Nunreme Court, been declared : •gain and again to lx- absolutely valid, i A-.o amendment is there because the i people put it there. j| I A NATION WIDE VOTE IS NOW ON. j After three years of national prohibi- | tion, after three years of open and I. underground propaganda by the liquor I traffic, after three years of organised ill- I tempi r to break down and discredit the i prohibition law, after three years of j liquor-hired newspaper propaganda alleg- j ing wholesale crime, corruption, drug and j dope taking, immorality and disrespect | for law. after three years of intense ; effort by every corrupt and contemptible ' ! agency *in the I'.S.A. to mislead the I people, the people hnve been and are : voting on the dominating issue of whe- j I ther or not they wish the prohibition! law modified. More than 'VI organisa- j ! tions have been and are in operation ! striving to get the people to nominate \ for Congress "beer and light wine' , can- j didates. What is the result? Latest: advices show that 23 States have by ; popular vote nominated their candi- j dates: these 23 States have a total ! 'population of over 55,600,000 —that is ; to say, more than half the entire popu- ' lation of the U.S.A. And here is the \ result, after all this frantic effort on ' the part of the "wets": —Congressmen I nominated, "drys" 182. "wets' , 3S— j that is to say, over S2 per cent of the ' peoples' representatives chosen tin's year in those States are "dry." No people in the world are quicker to scrap ! 1 a failure than the Americans. Would , the}' be voting in such an overwhelming way to retain prohibition if it was '| a failure, if it produced the horrors \ the liquor party pretends it does? Could : Sir John Foster Fraser say. as he lias said: "You do not hear about the one , hundred millions of Americans who do not break the law." Here is the ''opportunity" of voting on national pro- ' hibition—there is the result.— (Ad.)