PROHIBITION LECTURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19143, 8 October 1925, Page 13

PROHIBITION LECTURE.

CONDITIONS IN AMERICA. ADDRESS BY DR. VAN DER LAS. A well-attended' meeting was held in the Town Hall concert chamber last evening, when Dr. Richard A. Van der Las, D.D., of Seattle, U.S.A., gave the second of his addresses on conditions in America under prohibition. Mr. W. R. Tuck presided. Dr. Van der Las came to New Zealand a few months ago under a system of exchange, to take charge of a Presbyterian church in Wellington, the minister there going to his former church in Seattle,. He explained last evening that at the time of his arrival nothing was farther from his mind than the idea of conducting any campaign in New Zealand, but he had felt constrained to speak in defence of .his country by unscrupulous misstatements being made, about the conditions obtaining there since the enforcement of the eighteenth amendment. Dr. Van der Las claimed to be able to speak with authority, basing his statements purely on the_ findings of a special investigation committee, set up by the United States Government in May of last year and on his own experience in a town only a short distance from the Canadian border. Pointing out the great difficulties the prohibitionists had had to face in America, and illustrating some of the ingenious methods used by smugglers, he showed by a concise marshalling of official figures the extent- to which they had nevertheless prevailed. It had been no light task, he said, to eradicate all the influence formerly wielded by approximately 1200 breweries and 20,000 saloons. Yet, at : the .time of his departure from Seattle, convictions for drunkenness were practically unknown. Here he caused soma hilarity by satirically remarking that if lie had known that his leaving the United States would cause them to "go to thf dogs" the way thsv seemed to have done, he certainly would have stayed. His exposition of the improvements wrought by prohibition, especially to tho labouring man, might sound almost too good to be true, but. he had seen the changes of which he spoke, many of them taking place in the neighbourhood of his own church, and among his own congregation.