PROHIBITION IN MAINE.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14194, 7 November 1911, Page 2

PROHIBITION IN MAINE.

TO TH* EDITOR OF "THE PHESS."

Sir,—l have had to contradict statements of Mr Nordon's on a previous occasion, and have now to draw your attention and the attention of your readers to another misstatement of his. In your issue of the 4th inst., Mr Nordon states:—"lnstead of accepting this statement (that the prohibitory clause of the Maine Constitution- has been repealed by a majority of 20. as per Press Association) the Prohibitionists published a cablegram received from some person in America, stating that the Prohibitionists had a majority of 748."' Mr Nordon then goes on to say: —"This statement was shown to be false by the accounts contained in tho London 'Daily Telegraph,' the London •Times,' and tho London 'Standard, all of which have been published in the Christchurch papers without any com-

nient 01 my own." Now, as all that these papers published was the result of the lirst count, they do not prove that the cable (sent from America at a much later date) is false in any way, and Mr Nordon knows this perfectly well. Tho falseness is his own.

Ho even admits that wires from some correspondent of his own parly show rhat: —"It i.s most probable that the final result will not be known until December Ist." This shows that.thero is no foundation for his statements that any "scandalous attempts" are being made Fry the Prohibition party, or that Mr J. G. ".Yoolley is in error when he states that "Prohibition is safe."

Whatever tho result in Maine, which I admit is not definitely known in Xew Zealand, nor, for tho matter of that, even in M;i»2 itself, yet it does not much concern Tv'ew Zealanders, few of -whom know anything about the conditions under which the vote was taken. As a matter of fact, tho issue was not between prohibition and liquor, as most people imagine, but as to whether it is best to retain prohibition by statute or to have it voted on in a somewhat similar way to what it is in New Zealand. Many temperance people there thought a mistake had been mado in retaining statutory prohibition, as it precluded tho same interest being taken in the matter as would be tho case were periodica! votes taken.

If it really docs happen that the prohibitory clause is deleted from tho Constitution of Maine, they are still under prohibitory or local option laws, and the fight will have to be gone all over again to decide whether licensee will be issued or no.

Maine has never been under prohibition as wo know it in New Zealand, and, owing to the working of tho law known as the "Inter-State Commerce Law," which does not allow any State in the Union to bar the products of any other State, there has been no real prohibition in any part of America. Consequently, their experiences are not of so much value to us in deciding what is best for New Zealand. —Yours, etc.,

H. COLE

P.S. —Since writing trie above I find that Mr Nordon has further misstated his cause. The first in+imation nor Press Association was a cable published in your columns of the loth September, saying:—"That the State of Maine refused to repeal prohibition by a narrow majority," and as Mr Nordon says': "Surely this must be considered an unbiased source." Since then several contradictory cables have been received from various sources, but ?s we have no means of knowing what <ho final verdict is. wo must wait. — It. C.