N Z. Alliance Accepts Liquor Challenge.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume XXI, Issue 1137, 27 October 1922, Page 3

N Z. Alliance Accepts Liquor Challenge.

The liquor traffic, in the “ Evening Post” of Oct. 11, and in other papers, challenges the New Zealand Alliance to produce “any evidence that the American people have ever voted or had an opporopportunity of voting on the question of National Prohibition." WHAT ABOUT THE ALLIANCE’S CHALLENGE ? The alliance has repeatedly challenged the New Zealand liquor traffic to produce figures showing that the Customs and Excise revenue from the traffic has ever yielded £2,500,000 per annum to the Treasury. The liquor trade has never taken up that challenge. The Government return tabled in the Hotse on sth September shows that the largest amount produced by the liquor traffic in the way of revenue was in the year ended 31st March, 1922, when it was £1,359,856. For the first six monthis of this fiscal year(April 1 to September 30, 1922) the Government Comptroller of Customs states the total revenue from imported spirits, beer, stout and wines, and Excise from New Zealand beer, to be £642,160. If it is the same fur the next six months, the year will produce £1,284,320, which is £75,500 less than last year, although the duties and Excise have been doubled as compared with last year. And it is just about half of what the liquor traffic claims it yields in revenue. Who Put it There?—President Harding, of the U.S.A., said on July 4 last, at Marion, Ohio: “The eighteenth amendment denies to a minority a fancied sense ot personal liberty, but the amendment is the will of America, and must be sustained by the Government and public opinion." Chief Justice W. H. Taft, of the U.S.A., is on record that the amendment is an “overwhelming constitutional expression of the people.” Although attacked from every conceivable angle by the liquor interests, the amendment has, by the U.S. Supreme Court, been declared again and again to be absolutely valid. The amendment is there because the people put it there. A Nation-widq Vote is Now On.—After three years of National Prohibition; after three years of open and underground propaganda by the liquor traffic ; after three years of organised attempts to break down and discredit the Prohibition law ; after three years of liquor-hired newspaper propaganda alleging wholesale crime, corruption, drug and dopetaking. immorality and disrespect for the law; after throe years of intense effort by every corrupt and contemptible agency in the U.S.A. to mislead the people, the people have been and are voting on the dominating issue of whether or not they wish the Prohibition law modified. More than thirty-two organisations have been, and are, in operation striving to get the people tp nominate for Congress “beer and light wine ” candidates. What is the result?

Latest advices show that twenty-three States have, by popular vote, nominated their candidates ; these twenty-three States have a total population of over 55,500 OJO that is to say, more than half the entire population of the U.S.A. And here is the result after all this frantic effort on the part of the wets: Congressmen nominated drys, 182; wets, 38—that is to say, over 82 per cent, of the people’s representatives chosen this year in those States are dry. No people in , the world are quicker to scrap a failure than the Americans. Would they be voting in such an overwhelming way to retain Prohibition if it was a failure, if it produced the horrors the liquor party pretends it does ? Could Sir John Foster Fraser say, as he has said : “ You do not hear about the one hundred millions of Americans who do not break the law ” ? Here is the opportunity of voting on National Prohibition—there is the result. Another Challenge.—Now. then, here’ is another challenge to the New Zealand liquor traffic : The liquor traffic is challenged to produce any evidence that justifies it in advertising broadcast that if Prohibition is carried the moderate ; drinkers in New, Zealand are by thou- I sands going to become bandits, cut- ' throats, robbers, drug-fiends, and dopedrinkers. It is challenged to substantiate its disgusting insinuation that if Prohibition is carried in New Zealand I women not now in the habit of freI quenting hotel bars will take to drinking and become immoral and sly grog-sellers.

It is challenged to produce the authority for its statement that no New Zealand boy is at present subject to the temptation of indulgence at all in strong drink until he is twenty-one years of age—the Police Report for 1921 containing ;a record of 113 prosecutions of licensees for serving intoxicants to persons under twenty-one years of age. The liquor traffic is further challenged to disclose just how much extra net profit it made by charging 2s 6d extra on every bottle of spirits on the ground of increased duties when it had not paid that increased duty. When the liquor traffic has fully replied to this further challenge, the NZ. Alliance will be ready to hand out a few more. —N.Z. Alliance Publicity [7l]. i