THE PRECEDENT OF AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 53, 11 September 1928, Page 10

THE PRECEDENT OF AMERICA

(To the Editor.) Sir,—The secretary of the Licensing Reform Association is still on the run. He does not challenge the accuracy of the figures I quoted showing serious and regrettable increases in crime in Ohmeinun following the restoration of the open bar. for years he denounced No-license, the official literature of the Continuance Party declared that "drunken orgies" were common in No-license districts, and now, when the stalwart champion of restoration has a lirst-clasa example of the fruits of restoration to expound to the people—;he runs away from it. According to him, license reduces drunkenness —why doesn't he quote Ohinemuri, then? We are not discussing No-license; we are discussing the effect of the open bar upon the community. With regard to the U.S.A., I ask the secretary of the L.R.A. whether he is prepared to deny that an official report of the Senate Committee of the U.S.A., published in 1925, contains this statement: "In spite of increased severity on the part of most police departments, arrests for public drunkenness have decreased about 500,000 per year, according to well-known criminal statisticians." Also, whether that report does not also state: "Arrests for drunkenness in Boston the last Fiscal year decreased 44,000 from the total in 1917, when the liquor traffic was first restricted. .. . Many gaols have been closed. Massachusetts has closed one-third of her gaols and sold two." Who, in the U.S.A. is on our side, the Prohibition Side? Tho churches are on our side, the Salvation Army is on our side, the majority of captains of industry are on our Bide, the majority of educationalists are on our side, the majority of medical men are on our side, the majority of social service organisations are on our side, the building and loan associations are on our side, the majority of insurance companies arc on onr side, the wholesale and retail traders arc on our side, yea, even (he very hotolkeepcrs are on our side. Last, but not least, the two great political parties are on our side. And the .secretary of the L.R.A. invites us to believe that all these influential elements in the national life are. advocating something that increases drunkenness, crime, corruption, and is "a ghastly and tragic failure." Well, well! In a game of comparisons, the right comparison is the particular city before

and after Prohibition. That kind of com* parison shows that in New York City foi? the Ecven-year pic-war period under license drunkenness cases, according to the Police Commissioner's own figures averaged 34,863 i>er annum. Tor the eeven years 1920-26 under Prohibition they averaged only 11,400 per annum, a reduction of ovei* 67 per cent. According to figures used by the secretary of the L.R.A., New York had in 1925 12,017 arrests for drunkenness. To equal the record of Auckland in that year, allowing for differences in population, New York ought to have had 136,900 cases of drunkenness—it had only 12,017. To equal Wellington's record in that year New York needed 70,000 cases of drunkenness, and again it had onljt 12,017. ' The secretary of the L.R.A. preaches a doctrine of practical anarchy—i.e., obey only those laws that please yon.. Every crook, thief, and gaolbird in the Dominion will heartily applaud these sentiments of the L.R.A. secretary. But we have confidence that the majority of our fellow-citi-zens possess a higher standard of civic duty than that exhibited by your correspondent. What a wonderful preserver of morals and rectitude the liquor traffic must be, since, according to its advocates, it is the barrier holding us back from moral collapse. Surely we ought to replace all the churches by public Eousea having the unrestricted hours of sale.— I am, etc. , J. MALTON MURRAY, ■Executive Secretary, New Zealand Alliance.