PROHIBITION ABROAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19550, 1 February 1927, Page 14

PROHIBITION ABROAD.

CONDITIONS IN AMERICA. IMPRESSIONS OF A VISITOR. On his return from a world tov.r of nine months, Mr. Charles Todd, of I tunedin, president of the New Zealand Alliance, gave some impressions of his travels, particularly on prohibition, at a welcome tea held in his honour by the Auckland area last evening. Mr. R. A. Laidlaw presided, and other speakers included the Hon. G. Fowlds, Mr. W. R. Tuck, president of the Auckland area, Mr. T. H. Macky, chairman of the finance committee of the area, Mr. Wesley Spragg, and Mr. C. R. Edmond, general secretary of the alliance. Mr. Todd' said the information he had gathered in the United States and Canada would, he thought, provide him with all the arguments necessary to refute the common attacks of those who doubted 1 the progress of prohibition. In England and Scotland there was a great forward movement in the cause, but so far they had only reached the stage of local option. It had been forcibly pointed out at a great conference "in Manchester that Britain's heavy liquor debt was a severe handicap to her in competition with trade rivals. It was certainly a serious matter, said Mr. Todd, but a more serious aspect was the great loss in efficiency. Talking of his experiences in America, Mr. Toad said he had been unable to discover any students in numerous colleges he had visited with flasks in their pockets. A principal of one of the colleges told him it was a deliberate libel manufactured by the "wets." A poll tak«n by the Literary Digest while he was there was overwhelmingly in savour of prohibition. As to the "attitude in social circles toward liquor, he had attended a gre.?t conference of Rotarians at Denver, • Colorado, ant! there was no mention of liquor. '"'lt was as- absent from the breath of the Rotarians, added Mr. Todd, "as it was from their talk." There was no doubt about the prosperity of America, under, present' conditions. He noticed in Detroit that a 40- ■ storey building took only four months to build. At another building' to which ten storeys had to be. added the work was sufficiently completed in 90 days to enable the firm to turn out motor-cars from the new extension. He had met no orte in the United States who wanted the saloon;? back. The argument that America was prosperous because other countries had had to pay debts to Her was challenged by the fact •that since the end of the war the United States had lent to Europe four time- as moeb *s she h*d weired in war debt*. TMs was attributable to the wonderful efficiency of the people,, and doe very largely to prohibition. There was splendid accominwlstion in 'he hotels and many hotelkeepers had informed him thev were making much more than in the saloon days. The suggestion thai prohibition wonld raits the hotel business was answered by figure*, which showed that in the: list five years 600.000,000 dollars had fceea spent ca hotels in the* country.