PROHIBITION COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 19712, 12 November 1927, Page 13

PROHIBITION COLUMN

[Published by Arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.] The drink traflic is a drug traffic; it deals in intoxicating liquors containing the ■injurious narcotic drug. “Alcohol is a poison; so is strychnine; so is arsenic; so is opium, It unites with those agents. Health is always in some way or oilier injured by it,”—Late Sir Andrew Clark, M.D, TWO THOUSAND MILLION FOUNDS. Since tbe end of the Great War Groat Britain and Ireland have spent over £2,000,000,000 on intoxicating liquor. THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC CANNOT BE REFORMED, Wo have seen that there is no hope of improving in shape or form the liquor traffic. There is nothing now to bo done but to wipe it out completely. . . . The great curse of social crime is drink. The great curse of poverty is drink. ’When 1 hear of a family broken up and ask the cause—drink. _ It I go to the gallows and ask its victim the cause—drink. Then I ask myself in wonderment: “Why do men not put a stop to this thing?”—Archbishop Ireland. A SENSIBLE REQUEST. CALEB COBWEB DOES NOT SEE WHY IT SHOULD NOT BE GRANTED. The Coudersporf (Penn.) ‘ Enterprise'’ recently contained a novel paid advertisement. It was three columns wide and I2in long, and it was an application for a license to steal horses! The petitioner said he was willing to pay liberally for the privilege, and in view of the licenses granted to others to carry on a business producing at least three-four tbs of the crime committed in the community, bo did not sec why his request should not bo granted. ... He considered that the business ot stealing horses would do far less injury to the community than that of selling intoxicating liquors. He pledged himself not to take away the senses of any man or cause any man to heat his wife or commit murder. He agreed to do nothing that would dcstrov any man’s soul. Ho promised not to steal horses on Sunday or on election day or on legal holidays or after 10 o’clock at night. He also agreed not to steal colts or horses that have no sense or old brokendown 'plugs. ~ . . Ho reminded the court to which no applied that “ the community could not nm without license fees,” and that if he did not steal horses someone else would,” and that “all attempts to prohibit horse stealing only result in sneaks and liars.” He also directed attention to the number and character of those subscribing to bis petition, which included Eaton B. Merry, Barr T. Under, Worse N. Useless, A. Ward Heeler, and Justwon Glass. _ This bright advertisement is one ot the • shrewdest temperance , arguments ever sot forth. And why is it not a perfectly legitimate argument. 1 raeticallv " evorvone acknowledges trie harm fulness of the saloon. If we mouse it, why not license less harmuil sms, also? PROHIBITION IN AMERICA. That marvellous achievement, the bringing in of nation-wide constitutional Prohibition in America, seven years ago was the natural and inevitable outcome of two great epoch-mak-ing events which happened in that country nearly fifty years earlier. One of those events was the birth or tnc “ National Prohibition Party m a ''■National Grand Lodge, of Good/Templars. The other was the official claration of the General Methodist Conference of America that , the liquor traffic cannot be, legalised without sm. From the date of the birth of the Prohibition Party, which was more than a quarter of a century before the AntiSaloon League was heard of, the people and the politicians were steadily but surely educated up to the bchor that the onlv possible deliverance Irom the drink evil was in the total destruction ot the drink traffic, while the churches taught that to purchase and drink liquor was as much a sin as to make and sell liquor, and that to vote tor a politician who would the sale ot liquor and perpetuate the liquor traffic was an offence against God and a crime the nation. It al!_Coocl leinpInrs and total abstainers in bew Zealand prepared to take up the same alutude on the liquor question as was taken up in America the day star ol freedom will immediately appear, and it will not ho long before we shall hear the bolls of heaven ringing m. a brighter, purer, and happier civilisation in this great Commonwealth. WORLD NOTES. “Whatever Prohibition may have done for the idle rich, it ha.s done well for the laboring poor.”—Dr Haven Emerson. , “The once notorious Rum Row, oil the North Atlantic Coast, has joined the snows of yesteryear. But the United Stales and Canada arc finding effective ways of plugging the leaks along the Northern border, Minneapolis Journal.’ A new settlement in Mexico, named Ollaina, commenced their operations by adopting local Prohibition. The people are reported to have no gaol, and have never been called upon to hand over any of their inhabitants to the authorities because ot violations of this law. The education of the children is so efficient that there is no child of school age and over that cannot read and write. —Finland. — Educationally, Prohibiten has been a great blessing hero. Thirty per cent, more students are attending the universities; 65 per cent, more arc nt colleges, and 63 per cent, more children go to tho public schools. , —United States. — Wo have now thirty-six Labor hanks with deposits of over 11J ,00U,000dol (£23,200,000). Before Prohibition there was not a single Labor Bank in the whole country. The Amalgamated Garment Workers’ Union is building a million-dollar (£200,000) temple for the recreation and education of the 30,000 workers in the Chicago clothing industry. This is one of tho advantages of Prohibition. Less waste in liquor, more money for clothes and enjoyment. —Jngo-Slavia.— Tho Young People’s Total Abstinence Federation now numbers over 30,000 members gathered together in 300 branches. Serbs, Creates, and Slovenes in the several universities, colleges, and high schools belong to it. The movement against alcoholic .liquors is rapidly extending in this direction. ' . ' . CUT THIS OUT AND SHOW IT TO YOUR FRIENDS. LIES! He was a typical trade orator, and after rattling off some of the choicest pro-liquor fairy tales and warning his audience that because of Prohibition America was pla3’cd out, he reached his climax.

“ And so,” lie' yelled, “ are you, my friends—honest, hard-working Britishers like you—are you, I ask again, going to take all this lying down?” “ No,” shouted a voice from the back of the hall, “ the reporters are doing that.”