PROHIBITION.

Evening Star, Issue 18532, 15 January 1924, Page 2

PROHIBITION.

TO THE EDITOS. Sir,—lt is a significant thing that nearly all the cables emanating from the United States about the above question make reference only to the non-enforcement of the prohibiting law. Two years ago the brewers and distillers of Britain and Europe held a world conference at Lausanne, and raised an immense fighting fund (so the cables said) to prevent the further spread of Prohibition. It is a safe conjecture that this money and power aro being used by these international bootleggers to smuggle dririk into the United States, and disseminate anything and everything, through the Press of the world, that is calculated to misrepresent the working of the prohibitory laws. What must bo wilful misrepresentation concern-, ing the medical profession is a recurring theme by liquor traffic writers and inspired cables. As showing the real facts of the matter, will you, sir, kindly publish one or two short items on this phase of the question, Mrs Martha M. Alton, superintendent of the Medical Temperance for the World’s and National W.C.T.U., is authority for the statement; “Seventy-eight percent, of the physicians of the United States are not taking out permits to prescribe whisky for medicine. Of the 160,000 registered medical practitioners in the United States, there aro only about 55,000 who have permits to prescribe alcohol, as against 125,000 w!m do not.” Again, nearly half the States : in the Union—twenty-three—by their own State laws prohibit the sale of alcoholic liquors in druggists’ stores or their prescription by physicians. (Names of these States can be supplied if necessary.) Fur- : ther, in 1920 alcoholic liquors were 1 dropped from the medical supplies bought for the United Slates navy. The reason was that the United States navy doctors were using almost no alcohol for treating 1 the sick.

This strong trend in the medical world towards the disuse of alcohol as a medicine is indicative of themvaning power and popularity of the drug in progressive civilisation, and is the precursor of a “dry" world.—l am, etc., Citizen’. January 14.

TO THE EDITOB. Sir, —While running through some American papers I lighted on the following which will interest your readers in view of the “Funeral Outrage” cable you published some time ago. The cable rej lated how Prohibition enforcement officers held up and searched a. hearse, having reason to believe it contained alcoholic liquor. Now, the American paper I have received gives an account of an incident I which occurred last September in New | York City. One day early in the month ; a black hearse rolled through West Fourth I street, New York City, and drew up be- ! before a house in that thoroughfare. Two men alighted, looked around, then rolled off ton barrels. They wore immediately arrested by, Prohibition officials and the barrels confiscated, having been found to contain liquor (beer). To those who regarded the “ outrage ” of stopping a funeral as a disgrace to Prohibition enforcement, the above account will show that the incident was only the result of the well-known and despicable methods of bootleggers. It is notable that the arrest and imprisonment of the men implicated in the above affair was not cabled out to the New Zealand Press. It , is strange that, whereas American papers ■ (both “wet” and “dry”) are annoyed or j jubilant over the success of Prohibition I enforcement, practically the only accounts j the Press receives here are of the breaking of the law. Rarely, indeed, do accounts ! arrive telling of the stricter enforcement and success of Prohibition. For example, the following, one from hundreds, would have given the public a better idea as to the success or failure of Prohibition in j America:—“Federal Prohibition agents in I Ohio made 135 arrests in August. There I were thirty-eight prosecutions in the 1 month. The total fines were 14.650d01, taxes assessed 69.221d01, and penalties • assessed 51,999d01.” If, once in a. while, the j New Zealand public were allowed to see the I other side of the story, where Prohibition < is succeeding splendidly, they would find i that the law-breaking which we hear so | much of is becoming harder and harder ‘ ..every day. The above example in the ] State of Ohio will perhaps relieve many | people regarding the cost of enforcing j Prohibition, and the “ lost ” revenue if Prohibition were carried.—l am, etc., j Libeetx. 1 January. JA