The Times. PUBLISHED ON MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1923. REMARKABLE TRANSACTIONS.

Franklin Times, Volume 11, Issue 867, 21 November 1923, Page 4

The Times. PUBLISHED ON MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1923. REMARKABLE TRANSACTIONS.

’•‘We nothing extenuate, nor aught set down in malice. 1 ’ ’’ ... .. .w ' ■ *

RECORD week-end intoxication is claimed for Philadelphia in. to-day’s cable news< in this isspte. This is surely an undesirable state of affairs, and whether tfie figures are §b* soiutely fcorrect or not matters little, but the condition; iiScJosed .by the reports calls for serious consideration.

Many wonderful statements Have been sent out!’ fform America regarding the liquor question. ’ The "first detailed and authentic aecbttftt of one of the most surprising ■'developments that- the world*/has witnessed since the War has been supplied in a/fe* ; markable’ series : of News •t&Hhfe World." Regard/ ed purely f 6n v the surface, the story of the “WhlSky Running industry" is simpiy' a 1 ’firfet-cTSss : boys* shoisKeri We are Back again in the'days of ths buccaneers. Smugglers and pirates grim tragedy and broad farce, crafty •knavery and -audacity' thaft' ‘sticks* "at nothings" secret -islands and 1 gold Beyond the dreads' of avarice/ even por maraae are all there:' *•’ No’ One could have believed such things possible in the drab modern business ! "world - ’ if the facts were -not .established bet yond all question. Unfortunately as the News says, the epic has' its seamy and even its squalid side. “We ar§ not referring,” it satyg/ “to the grim-i mer episodes of mere blood-thirsty piracy which darken ity -nor even 1.0 the lust of gain at: any price which inspires the whole story. Many epics will not survive a too exacting inquiry into the humanity or disinterestedness of their principal characters. But we cannot think tnat many- English men and women, whatever their views on the temperance question, can read without a certain shame the record of these remarkable transactions. We -cannot at all wonder that the majority of Americans hear it with growing indignation. The merits or otherwise of Prohibition as a policy have very little to do. with, the question. Here is a Jaw passed .by the Legislature of the United States, with the undoubted assent and support of the majority of Americans; and a considerable number of British subjects devote their whole energies to defeating it by every artifice that craft can, suggest and bold men be found to execute, sucking enormous private profit out of the enterprise, and doing it all under the cover of the British flag. Technically, ‘whisky running’ to America may be as lawful as it is undoubtedly profitable ; we suppose, in fact, it is'so far as this country is concerned. But it is not pleasant to think of the British flag being used as a mere cover for the drink smuggler which, after all, legal or not, is what these people are.” The irritation of the American Government at the use which is being made of the Bahamas is intelligible —as intelligible as ours would be if, say Samoa had been ceded to America and was promptly employed by private American citizens to run contraband into New Zeaiand in defiance of the laws of the Dominion.