The Liquor Traffic

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 266, 5 August 1932, Page 13

The Liquor Traffic

Sir, —-Your correspondent “W.R.Ssays that “Prohibition was tried in Eden and the lesson of its failure after 6000 years seems not yet to have been learned.” From which we are driven to conclude that “W.R.S.” considers that God made a mistake in issuing that prohibition. Logically he would have to go on and say that since the prohibitions “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Thou shalt not steaL” have not been entirely observed, therefore again God made a mistake. Yet • the fact is that we live in a social order compact of prohibitions. If “W.R.S.” is right, then it is ridiculous for local authorities to plant notices on the green* sward reading “Keep off the grass.” IS is absurd of them to paint on the streets, “Parking prohibited.” It is foolish to saj opium shall not be imported except fo| medicinal, purposes; it is the height of absurdity to prohibit a man from having more than one wife. And since there are to be 5.00T.000 slaves in the world to-day. the attempt to abolish slavery is “an abject failure.” The success of a prohibition depend? upon public opinion. An enlightened public opinion supports prohibitions. There is still appalling ignorance about the nature and effects of alcohol as a beverage, which accounts for much of the opposition to the abolition of the liquor traffic. Because Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jun., has come to the conclusion that prohibition is a failure, everybody . else is invited by “W.R.S.” to accept <that view. Mr. Rockefeller says that the speakeasy has replaced the saloon probably threefold. I do nbt agree, but let us accept it for the present The U.S.A. Bureau of Statistics has declared that t l '- consumption of alcoholic liquors under prohibition '-as been reduced 70 per cent., so that the speakeasies, threefold as numerous as the saloons, have only been able to effect a consumption 30 per cent of what it was when the saloons operated. Mr. Rockefeller is inviting the American people to repeal the prohibition law without offering any alternative.. We have to remember that before national prohibition in the U.S.A, there had been tried in that country local option. Statewide prohibition, hign license, and Stat* or Government control and sale of liquor. The vital question is. what do the opponents propose now? The advocates of repeal are illogical. They are suggesting that the control of the liquor traffic be handed back to the States and that the Federal Government be made responsible for seeing that “wet” States, do not interfere with “dry” States. That is precisely the position that obtained before national prohibition. The Webb-Kenyon law was an attempt to prevent the liquor traffic in wet States from smuggling liquor into dry States, and the circumstance that the traffic would not respect this law was one factor that helped on the demand for national prohibition, Now. the repealers say, the Federal Government can never make ” success of national prohibition, but we insist that they make a success of controlling the wet States. . Take New Zealand. There is much, far too much, after hours trading, and too many breaches of the licensing law. Does anyone suggest that things would be better if we abolished six o’clock closing, allowed hotels to open all day Sunday, and permitted the free sale of alcoholic liquor anywhere and everywhere? The weakness of Mr. Rockefeller s position is that he says: “Many of our best citizens . . . have openly and unabashedly disregarded the 18th Amendment.” He refers to the so-called superior people, the wealthy, the educated people who resent interference with their personal liberty. Well, in my view, people who openly disregard a national law adopted by the people in a constitutional manner lose their right to the title .“best citizens.” The citizen who will conspire with the bootlegger to defeat the law is no better morally than the bootlegger, and the views of such people are not worth consideration. . Fifty-two years after the United States Government had enacted the law for the abolition, of slavery, the. Secretary of the Navy reported thafc during the y ear „,*“ slave ships had been captured and 3119 Africans had been rescued. During those fifty-two years probably many “best citizens” were asserting the law could never be enforced. Yet to-day there is no African slave trade with the U.SA. Th* attempt to abolish the liquor traffic has been tried as a national, measure for only twelve years. Why be in a hurry to.say that the objective cannot be accomplished? —I am, etc.. J. MALTON MURRAY. General Secretary, N.Z. Allianos. Wellington. July 27.