SUCCEEDING

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1927, Page 12

SUCCEEDING

PEOHIBITKW IN U.S.A

GRADUAL GAINS .PERMANENT

MX. CHARLES TODD'S IMPRESSIONS

The president of the New Zealand Alliance (Mr. Charles Todd, of Dunodin) was welcomed by leaders in the prohibition movement last evening at tea at Gamblo and Greed's, on his return from a tour of the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. The Eev.

Mr. W. J. Conirie, chairman of the standing committee, presided, and ! welcomed the guest, whose return ■was also the- subject of brief eulogistic references by Mr. W. I>. Hunt, chairman of the finance committee, and the ' Bey. F. E. Harry, Wellington area president. Amongst. others present were the Hon. G-. Fowlds (Auckland), and Messrs. A. L. Hunt, Jas. Fletcher, and Or. A. Troup. Greeted with "For He's a Jolly Goou Follow," Mr. Todd said that he had . been able to arrange for the conduct o£ his business affairs, and intended . to devote his entire energies for tt:e next -two years to the prohibition .: movement. . ■ ; ; NO HALF-WAY HOUSE. "Investigations in America and elsewhere have convinced mo that no 'half-way honse' is possible," he said. "Alcohol is a poison and should be wiped out. It is said that such a sumptuary law cannot be carried out, but slaves were smuggled into America for years after slavery was illegal, and it took from ten to twenty years to make prohibition fairly efficient in dry States. It;is efficient now to 80 per cent, or 90 per cent., but it must be made 100 per c&nt. efficient. "With • 300,000 men. and women in New Zealand believing in prohibition, we must place it on the Statute Book here. I have investigated the working executives of the TJnited States and the TJnijted Kingdom, and they are weak compared,with oura. With its help I in-tend.-to raise a fund of £10,000 for tho coming fight." PBOHIBITIOir RESULTS. Dealing with, conditions in America, Mx. Todd said that careful and exhaustive investigation had made him more fully acquainted with them than many American citizens. Checked by his own observations, prohibition in the , .had made him "drier" than *' >ever. ' A picture had been drawn by the liquor trade of the falling off in immigration that would follow prohibition, yet quotas were booked up two years ahead. Massed and scientific production had increased until at the elbow of every mechanic was energy to the extent, of four horsepower. WONDEEFUL HOTEL SERVICE. "America," said Mr. Todd, "has the moat wonderful hotels in the world, expensive, but giving the best value • for the money. Hotel-keeping is taught as a science, and in the United ■ States during the last few years 600,----000,000 dollars were spent in building new hotels.. Stores and shops have " tgfcen;' the' place of "the saloons. In a slum district in New York I saw shirts : priced at 12} dollars bought by men now earning £2 a day who formerly spent lower wages on licjuor. FEWER PIRST OFFENDERS. "They are not trying to reclaim the old'drunkards, but, though Nev.- York is still one of the wettest spots in America, there are fewer first offend- , erg. In 1914 they were 24 per 10,000; . ;i|si:: 1925Tthey dropped t0."6 per 10,000, or a 75 per cent, improvement. From •1916 to 1925 the total number of first offenders dropped to one-third, although the population has increased so ', jmu'ch^Vtiiat the improvement is really ':'" >?£ &F IJfgsPr ;Crime:.in- Americais ap- £ jfUisjg,iljr4admit>: but there have been r ; tjto, iimmy "sob sisters" and too much '. Nonsensical; ; talk "of 'reclaiming crimin- , als by kindness. They, were too com- , ;fortabl<B ':m gaol, and the result was that-criminals flocked in from other countries. The reaction has set in. fines are being increased, and crime in America is lessening."

COLLEGE STUDENTS LIBELLED. Mr. To'id refuted the statement that college men and maidens had gone to the dogs in America. Eieh men's sons sometimes were guilty of excesses, but some of ,the statementavthat the liquor ti^de {regarding the, results of prohiibitioja.were a libel on-the young people of part of the campaign still being carried on by the brewers' and 'distillers' associations in hopeless anticipation, of the recall of the Eighteenth Amendment.

"I saw 8000 Eotarians in conference at Denver," he said, "gathered from all parts of the globe, but the question of prohibition -was not mentioned. Liquor yra,a as absent from the Eotarians' conyera^tiou as from their breath, y«t it yras" a joyful gathering. : ; IK OTHER COUNTRIES.

pealing with Canada, the speaker at iributed the backsliding on prohibition to the fact that the police were under the cities' control, and prohibition proved costly to enforce. Discontent ■with the present position would cause ,the pendulum to swing back. Beer>"gardens had been tried, but were found to degenerate into places of assignation until the more respectable of them excluded' women altogether. Mr. Todd devoted some attention to conditions in England and Scotland, and concluded with an instance of the misrepresentations of American journalists. In England correspondence on prohibition was not allowed to airoear in the Press.

A vote of thanks was then accorded the speaker, and the gathering concladed with the National Anthem. '