PROHIBITION CAUSE

Evening Star, Issue 22086, 20 July 1935, Page 28

PROHIBITION CAUSE

ADDRESSES BY ALLIANCE LEADERS APPEAL FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT The case for Prohibition was strongly advocated by the Rev. J. R. Blanchard, B.A-, the president of the New Zealand Alliance, and Mr J. Mai ton Murray, the general secretary of the Alliance, at a meeting held last night in Burns Hall, there being an attendance_ of about 500. The meeting opened with the singing of the National Anthem and a prayer led by the Rev. J. Pringle, president of thilocal Temperance Reform Council. Mr F. ■ Jones, M.P., the deputy-, mayor, who presided in the absence through indisposition of the mayor (Rev. E. T. Cox), extended a welcome to the city to Messrs Blanchard and Murray, who were in the course of a ,Dominion tour for the purpose of impressing upon people the necessity of voting for Prohibition at the time of the next General Election at the end of November or early in December. “THIS SATANIC CURSE.” ‘The Road to Freedom’ was the subject of the address by the Rev. J. R. Blanchard, 8.A., who stated at the outset that it was a fact that many people were going to the devil in ‘ God’s Own Country.’ Some people were busy making money out of what was sending others to the devil, while some were quite content to sit back and do nothing to stop it. The New Zealand Alliance was appealing to the people to remove the trek devil-wards by using their right to vote at the next licensing poll. That was the people’s road to freedom from this Satanic curse. Since the last licensing poll, when full credit had been given for socalled revenue. New Zealand was over £28,500,000 to the bad in its account wjth the liquor trade, said Mr Blan chard. Its loss was worse than that when computed in moral terms. For that period they could record 25.475 convictions for drunkenness; 6,344 Prohibition orders; 1,989 convictions for being drunk in charge ni a motor vehicle; 4,178 convictions for offences committed while drunk; 2,989 indecent and other assaults; 2,915 prosecutions , of hotelkceping for law-breaking. , Mr Blanchard said that, speaking on i the average, every second day a case of alcoholism had been treated in our hospitals; every sixth _day there bad : been c death whoso assigned or contribute' "puso vies n'"o)io]isni; every i nil’* • 'md ■■■ c'’mission to a meuuu asylum for the same cause.

Murders, suicides, poverty, broken homes, neglected children, the degradation of women and youth, in which liquor had been a definite factor, were on record. It was estimated that New Zealand was making drunkards at the rate of six a day. Such were the evils to which liquor was wedded. No amount of regulation had been able to divorce them. The New Zealand Alliance was appealing to -the people to emancipate the Dominion from those evils by removing the traffic. The liquor traffic, said the speaker, was engaged in an organised attempt, through advertising, to spread the drinking habit, especially among women and youth. When the leading sportsmen and athletes of the world were advising young men and women not to drink the trade was advertising drink as essential to athletic prowess and sporting success. _ The hospitals o. the world were reducing the mcdioiuaiuse of alcohol to the vanishing point, yet the trade was advertising drink as a necessary daily tome. The Alliance had made urgent representations to the proper authorities to have these misleading advertisements suppressed in the interests of public health, but was fold that >t was not possible to do so. Mr Blanchard said that no trade had been the subject of so much restrictive legislation as had'the liquor trade, and no such trade had shown itself so unwilling to observe such _ laws. The trade resisted all legislation which im ; pinged upon its interests, and that it could do most effectively, in its opinion, by exerting control in politics. Whatever party had been in power—Conservative. Liberal, Labour—it had felt the power of liquor interests, its open boast was that “ it is the strongest political machine in any trade in any country.” When all the facts were considered, how else could the reduction of 3d a gallon in the excise on heer in 1934 be accounted for? Harassed business men, longing and asking for some relief in taxation, might well ask: Why has the liquor business been accorded such special favours? They had the answer to their question in their own hands and the remedy. They could free New Zealand from the incubus of such a trade by voting against it when election day arrived. (Applause.) EXPERIENCE OF AMERICA. Mr J. Maltou Murray, the general secretary of the New Zealand Alliance, spoke on ‘ The Failure of Repeal.’ Ho said that the Abstract of Statistics and official figures for the United States during the “dry” period of 1923-31 showed that drunkenness decreased 77 per cent. Police figures from 225 cities and towns for the first year of repeal showed that, compared with the first year of Prohibition, the increase in drunken css was 224.30 per cent. If nothing else had happened, that demonstrated conclusively that tho

) ; “ greater temperance ” promised by President Roosevelt, Vice-president ' Ganior, and a host of repeahsts, had ; not resulted. Bepeal had failed to * make things hotter, as promised. Mr ’ Murray quoted figures to show that : motor accidents had largely increased since the repeal of Prohibition. Poli-i tieians who had promised faithfully ■ that tho saloons would not return, ’ promptly forgot thoso promises as soon as the election was over. The result was that not only had the saloon returned but the regulation of 1 the liquor traffic was probably the most lax the country had ever known. There had been a tremendous property loss in addition. That "3,000 persons were killed and 8 q 2,000 injured in motor accidents in 193-f did not worry the brewers. One of the surprises that had confronted tho Department of Justice in the United States was the rapid increase in tho population of the gaols since repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. The speaker quoted an editorial from a Chicago newspaper protesting against an ordinance being "sneaked” through the council granting permission for saloons to remain open till 3 o’clock on Sunday mornings, and said the incident was a reversion to the tactics which brought about Prohibition. Tho paper said; “The liquor business has been the faithful ally of of every vicious element in American life. It has bribed politicians, juries, and legislatures.” Though taxation had been increased Go per cent, in the States the President was fighting to impose still more taxation. Before repeal the Budget deficit was £200,000,000, and after a year of repeal it stood at £800,000,000, so that repeal failed “to balance local, state, and national budgets.” It had been promised that repeal would solve the unemployment problem. Just before repeal took effect tho American Federation of Labour in November, 1933, reported 11,030,000 unemployed. In January, 1935, the bulletin of tho National City Bank of Now York stated: “ The relief rolls are longer than ever before, including almost 19,000,000 persons.” As a measure of financial and economic relief, repeal bad proved to ho a dismal failure, (Applause.) The speakers wore accorded a hearty vote of thanks, carried by acclamation.