A Revolution

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 299, 22 November 1922, Page 10

A Revolution

GENERAL CONTEMPT FOR LAW. U.S.A.'s TROUBLES. The above quotation is contained in a special article on U.S.A. in "The Times," London, of the 4th July, 1922, from -which are taken the following extracts: — "The one inevitable conclusion which Is i'orced on one by studying, the conditions in the United States, after three years of attempt to enforce the Act, is that if we wish to make Great Britain sober, the way to do it is not by passing a general prohibition law. It is true that we are a vastly more law-abiding people than the Americkns, but the difficulty of enforcement, would differ only in degree, not in kind. Nor do I believe that the American people, if they had to do it over again, would take the same course. In the city of New York there were in the month of May last 719 arrests for drunkenness. A magistrate who has been for many years on the bench, said recently that he had never seen bo many cases of or growing out of drunkenness. There is being drunk in the United States now an immense amount of socalled "whisky" of the vilest Quality, from which the general belief is there are more deaths than there ever were from alcoholism in the ante-Prohibi-tion days. It ls again, too, generally asserted not to contain some truth, that young people in' the cities, especially girls,, take to drink out of mere bravado, because it has to he done secretly. It is obviously far less dangerous for a girl to have a cocktail, a glass of wine or a liqueur at a luncheon table than-to be taken to a private room or out in a motor car to drink clandestinely. Above all, there is the general contempt for the law as law, which is being bred lmto the -people. As has been often remarked when the best people in the eo_untry, including leading business men, judges, senators, and members of the Cabinet take plejasure in breaking a law, or treat it as a Joke, then something is wrong with the law. Whether ox* not as some assert, the United States ls more drunken than it used to be. there must be some better way of making a people sober. It wias a revolution almost as violent as Bolshevism, and it is difficult to see wfcat the •nd will he.'-•-' Do you want this said about our COUntry? Vota nrmtiniißnce—Arlvfe, 78.