PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18497, 6 September 1923, Page 9

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

AMBASSADOR'S COMMENTS. EFFECTIVE IN COUNTRY. Prohibition of intoxicating liquor in the United States has, on the whole, been effective in the rural districts and in the smaller! towns .throughout the country. It is less effective on the eastern seaboard and in the vicinity of the Great Lakes, where powerful organisations of liquor-smugglers succeed in effecting a regular traffic in imported intoxicants. '//."' " This is the summing-up made by Sir Auckland Geddes, British Ambassador r.t Washington, in a memorandum on the effects of prohibition in the United States, sent to the British Foreign Secretary. Large quantities of home-made liquor are brewed, he adds, but it has proved to be poisonous in many cases and the practice is reported to bo on the decrease. - According to opinions given by th* association , against the '■ Prohibition Amendment,- the fact "that the consumption of intoxicaing liquor is illegal has in itself been sufficient to lead many Americans who formerly drank little or nothing to conform to a fashionable habit at .social gatherings of carrying small pocket flasks of homo-brewed or imported spirits. , Sir Auckland Geddes adds that statistics compiled by the health authorities of 19 cities, all having populations over 300,000, show that the deaths from alcoholism in 1922 were slightly more than in 1920 or 1921, but were 57 per cent, fewer than the deaths which occurred from this cause in 1916 or 1917. Referring to the economic effects, the I memorandum says that since the adoption of Prohibition;, a marked increase, which is computed at 40 per ,cent., has taken place in the , amount of deposits in savings, banks. • The supporters of Prohibition in y the United 'Spates, claim that the average* ! wage-earner now has considerably more money to spend on the education of his children, on the furnishing of his home, on dress, sports, and amusements. , , * They also affirm that Prohibition has caused, increased production- in the. factories, and that many employees who in former days absented themselves regularly., on Monday and even on Tuesday of each'week, now work a full 6-day week. So many other factors, adds Sir Auckland, h&ve contributed to restore economic conditions in the United States since the war that it is almost impossible to form any estimate of the extent to which Prohibition has contributed to this recovery or otherwise.