PROHIBITION COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 19758, 7 January 1928, Page 15

PROHIBITION COLUMN

[Published by Arrangement with the Temperance Reform Council.] YOU MAY TRUST YOUR BOY, BUT YOU CANNOT TRUST THE DRINK. The liquor traffic can no more be run without using up boys and girls than a saw-mill can be run without using up logs! Of course, so long as it’s your neighbor’s boy or girl, it does not matter, does it? Man, woman, does it? PROHIBITION AND PROSPERITY. [By Guy Hayeer, President, World Prohibition Federation.] The ‘ American Clothing Trade Journal’ (August, 1924) has several interesting references to the improvement in trade which has taken place under Prohibition. The editor, Mr Henry White, says:— “ The /.shutting off of the legalised liquor supply immediately diverted two thousand • million dollars (£400,000,000) from booze into useful channels. A goodly proportion of this money has gone into more and better clothingr Sober men buy good garments for their wives and children.” The trade editor of the same journal, Mfc Henry Simons, declares: — “The quality and quantity of men’s and boys’ clothing, as well as that of women and children, lias been vastly improved by changes attributable to Prohibition.” Miss Grace Abbott, chief of the American Federal Children’s Bureau, asserts;—

“Prohibition is a remarkable contribution to social regeneration. Children are now being reared unexposed to all kinds of evil which radiated from the liquor saloon, and very few now know the poverty and demoralisation of family life caused by drinking parents.” Mr W. A, Cummings, president of the National Laundry Association of the Uhited States, in an address delivered at the annual meeting of his society (July, 1924), said:— “Husbands of women who formerly took in washing for financial support can now maintain their families, and their wives have retired from the laundry business. This we generally attribute to the adoption of Prohibition.”

The well-known American Salvation Army leader, Commander Evangeline Booth, in an interview published in the Chicago ‘Daily News’ (April 11, 1924). has declared;— “We know the benefits of Prohibition in the lowest places, not from hearsay, but from first-hand knowledge. Tens of thousands of children are going to school to-day well nourished who went hungry before. Mothers who never had half a dollar for clothes are now well dressed.” Mr M. O. ■'Mmighan, secretary. National Dairy Council, said (July, 1924): — “ I found in Hartford, Connecticut, 60 per cent, of the people drinking milk at lunch time. Mothers and children have far more milk jiow than ever before. The consumption of milk has markedly increased since the advent of Prohibition.”

THE POLICY 0F THE ALLIANCE. The New Zealand Alliance has consistently maintained the principle that power to continue or abolish the liquor traffic must be vested in the electors. It is not seeking to secure Prohibition by Act of Parliament, and is directly opposed to any attempt to substitute the decision of the Legislature for the vote of the people. All it demands from Parliament is a straightforward poll and fearless administration in accordance with popular determination. It recognises that the adoption of its demand's and the prominence given to them are questions to be determined by the electors. It is not affiliated to any political party, nor does it support any political party. Its policy is to make public the nature of all legislative proposals affecting the liquor traffic; to ascertain the attitude towards such proposals of all candidates for Parliament, and to make that attitude known to the electors concerned. CONVINCING COMPARISON. An influential American journal, the ‘ Outlook,’ the management of which is always inclined to be critical of the results of Prohibition, early last year entrusted Mr Ernest W. Mandeville with the taslc of making a thorough survey of Prohibition and its results in the United States. He contributed a dozen articles _ and told his story fairly and impartially, according to his own statement. He did not cover up any of the unpleasant things connected with present-day drinking in the United States, but had many favorable things to _ say regarding the working of Prohibition. When he had completed that task he was sent by the ‘ Outlook ’ to England .to write further articles on what he saw of drink in the Old Land. In his very first article from England he said that viewing conditions abroad he speedily became convinced of the superiority of Prohibition in America, with all its faults, to the political and social domination of the liquor trade in Great Britain and its consequent evils. Making a comparison between Great Britain and America, Mr Mandeville says: “After a close study of the bootlegging evils in the United States, and then a tour of observation in Great Britain, I feel strongly that I would rather see America under Prohibition than America sodden with drink as_ in England.” He paints an appalling picture of drinking in the Old Country. He says that in passing along almost ai\y street in the large cities of Britain it is a, common thing to see men and women crowding the doorways of the public houses trying apparently to drink all they can before the closing hour. Many have to find standing room outside on the street kerb in order to drain their glasses. “A scrutiny of the alcohol-soaked faces, of the shambling men and blearyeyed and bedraggled women is sufficient proof of the deteriorating effect of this long-established British custom. Oftentimes the children accompany their parents to the pubs. Sometimes these youngsters have to lead their drunken elders home. The great benefits to the children of America, of our abolishment of the open saloon, are forcibly impressed upon any traveller in England.” BEER WITH A PUNCH. A Liverpool brewery has issued a poster depicting a stalwart young man holding a glass of beer in one hand, while the other hand is drawn back and clenched, as for striking a blow. The title is “The Beer With a Punch In It.” Two poorly-dressed women were looking at a copy in Park Lane. One said; “It says,‘The Beer With a Punch In. It.’” The other said wearily: “Don’t WE know it!” PRESBYTERIAN PRONOUNCEMENT. Upon his election as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Dr W. 0. Thompson, who recently retired from the presidency of Ohio State University, made as his first official utterance the following statement : “ As the newly-elected Moderator or presiding officer of the General Assembly, which is the highest court of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, one of my first official acts is to proclaim to the world my sympathy with and approval of the Eighteenth Amendment to our Federal Constitution and the Volstead law. for its enforcement.”