"DIRE CONSEQUENCES"

NZ Truth, Issue 878, 23 September 1922, Page 12

"DIRE CONSEQUENCES"

: % , ' — — — — — I — — — ■»—— . iiiiii ■! 11l II '-y' ' • / • ProMbitl©!! In Asrsieiica. Rev. Wyiidliam Heatlicote replies to ' ■A. . Mr. Hammond's Criticism. Reprinted from "The Evening Post," Wellington, Wednesday, August 30th/ 1922.

The public interest taken m the tion was demonstrated by an aud Chamber of the Town Hall last nlgl ham Heathccte's reply to criticism by the Rev. R. B. S. Hammond r« Luckie presided. At tho outset of his address, be referred to the suggestion that he was not a competent judge' of the results of Prohibition m America, because he .was only there for a period of a few months. Ifc was wiser, so ifc was said, to rely on' those who lived there. " Very well," said the speaker, " my brother has been manager of the Canadian Bank of Commerce m San Francisco for sixteen years, aud before that had lived m Canada ever since ho wajs a boy. He certainly fulfils the requirement. He knows the condition of the country and how the people have re-acted to Prohibition as well as most people, certainly better than anyone out here. "», "Now, m what I said, I was not relying solely and only upon my own observation and experience, but upon his much wider knowledge. If I may be allowed to say so, ho is a very shrewd man, and one who is very careful of his' words. Had he been otherwise, he would scarcely have been sent out, as he was sent out, jgo'me three years ago,, to New Zealand and Australia, to . conduct -important financial affairs with the Governments of those countries. Moreover, he is above all things a staunch Briton, and he asked me before I left to do x what I could to prevent Prohibition being grafted on to this country because of its disastrous results m America. He also introduced me to many leading business men m San Francisco, who, without exception, confirmed hiß opinion. . y " This is Prohibition." '•■True, my own actual experience would not be enough to ■ base a case Upon, especially aa I did not visit the country for tho express purpose of finding out the facts, hut even m my ahort visit I had enough evidence forced upon me to make me realise that Prohibition has broken down m its professed object. I saw more drunks m the streets of San Francisco than I see m Wellington, and m a much worse condition. I saw what I have never seen. before m a 'wet' country — I saw m one. of the leading /restaurants of the city' a man carried out by three waiters m an 'absolutely helpless condition. His condition could not have been brought about by ordinary alcohol. The chief waiter whispered to me: ' This is Prohibition.' I saw whisky aold m the clubs. I was offered- drinks on trains. In private houses I was offered, and have accepted, home-made brews, vile concoctions called ' Hooch,' which you are supposed to accept if you do not wish to give offence. But these are only details, but they are details confirmatory of what my brother told me ; and of tho facts and figures which I shal presently give to you. "Many people aro surprised, and some are shocked, by tlie fact that I have ventured to oppose Prohibition. This surprise is based on a false assumption. It i 3 assumed m defiance of the evidence that Prohibition is necessarily right, and that consequently, those who oppose Prohibition aro necessarily wrong,' and sinners of tho deepest dye. Now al this is a false assumption based partlj on ignorance of the facts., and partly or prejudice. I hope that the very fad that I have opposed Prohibition, espec tally seeing that I have visited America may do something to correct that'opin ion,?and suggest to the minds of manj that they may possibly he under ai illusion m tins' matterO l *. ** I kno^ Prohibition is a curse, and increases thj 'gSsj> ffMsk it grapwas! .&jrare, ; jthjgn-i

campaigns !or and against Prohlbl. * icncc which overflowed tbe Concert it on the occasion of the Rev. Wyndof his attitude towards Prohibition scently at 'Newtown. Mr. M. F. is not only right, but it is the duty, of a clergyman to oppose it. And knowing what I do, I have made up my mind to do. what little I can to preserve this country from being cursed by a measure so fair m its promises, and so ugly m its results, and having 'put my hand to the plough, -I shall not look back.' "For I am convinced that the defeat of Prohibition depends on our being able to got;the real facts of the case m the minds of the people. When those facts are known, although some pecple,^ of course, would still vote for Prohibition, even if an angel from Heaven besought them not to do so, I am convinced that there^ is onough sanity, goodwill, and patriotism m the country, to meet it with an overwhelming defeat. My task is to placebefoTe the people other courses, and to show that those suggested by the Prohibitionists are illusory. The Real Issue. "The Teal issues are these : .On the one hand, the continuance of the drink traffic as we have it now, subject to any possible Teform by law, with a certain amount of evil results m the form of excessive drinking ; and on the other hand, the abolition of the present legitimate trade, and the substitution for it of an illicit trade, purveying to the people very much worse liquor, and the steeping of the drinking public m drugs, and the promoting of a general contempt of the law. ■. The American Experiment. "Even without ' the American experiment, I would advise, with Hamlot, to 'rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others we know not of.' But with the experience of America before us, I maintain it is suicidal madness for the people to adopt, Prohibition. After all, what evils do exist m connection with tho present trade? ' While theTe is a certain amount of drunkenness m the country, yet on the wholo the people of New Zealand are not a drunken people. On the contrary, they are a very sober people." Sober New Zealand. "Wet Now Zealand is not one-third as drunken as Prohibition Chicago. In , 1921, Chicago, with a population of 2£ millions, . had 51,360 drunken cases be- . fpre the Courts, whereas Now Zealand, with a population of 1£ milliou, only had i 8000, and, according to one official report, only 5000. Further, New Zealand i has many seaports, ahd many of these ; cases, were sailors from the ships, and > i were not native New Zealanders at all. For wet New Zealand to be as drunken i as dry Chicago, jfc should have 28,000 > cases instead of 8000. "What is all the . fuss about? Why jeopardise the sobriety , of the "people and irritate a law-abiding 1 nation? A Prohibitionist friend of mine looked, up the Now Zealand figures with , me, and was amazed when he saw them, i He said to me:' 'It looks like another i illusion.' I replied: 'Of course it is. an illusion, but that is what crowds are . governed by.'" [To tho suggestion that Prohibition was j progress, and. opposition to it reaction, [ Mr. He'tfthcote renlied that progress deI 'pended on an understanding of the law* X of nature, and Prohibition defied th« i laws of nature. It defied the love o: b liberty and the British hatred of coercion. - cion. It ' ignored the scientific ' fac , that alcohol was not only a food anc - medicine, but. m one form or anothe f a necessity for human existence. Hen© i the most progressive minds m ever; , age had been against Prohibition, fron a Milton to Lincoln, and from LincoL i .to/Wilson./- r

" Christ Not a Prohibitionist." Prohibition was a one-sided game. If the Prohibitionists won, the losers had to adopt the habits of the winners, but if the. anti-Prohibitionists won, the same penalty was not on the losers. Lincoln and Wilson were quoted by the speaker against Prohibition, and it was true to say that Prohibition did not emanate from statesmen, but from idealists and faddists. Christ was not a Prohibitionist, but Mohammed did endorse Prohibition, and, should the Cross bow to the Crescent ? Mr. Hammond had said : "Prohibition has never been beaten m the history of those who have lived under it, and that was overwhelming evidence \in favour of it." "With the exception "of the present latest experiment m U.S.A., it would be nearer the truth to say," replied the speaker, "that Prohibition had never lasted long. British Columbia had Prohibition, but has repealed it. The Quebec Province had Prohibition, and also repealed it. In Quebec you can get beer and wines m the hotels, and spirits from Government stores, and I have seen the process m operation. I used to go across the river at Ottawa from dry Ontario to wet Quebec, and examine the working of this plan. A Canadian Premier. "The following is from a speech by the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Louis Tascherau, on the reasops why it was reoealed. I quote from the 'New York Times,' 20th April, 1922: 'Thero is not a man of good faith who will not admit that Prohibition was disastrous from the point of view of temperance, and disastrous from the point of .view of public morals. Adulterated alcohol flooded the province, and the people were. being poisoned. The province has become the headquarters of a trade, at limes honest, but more often clan-, destine and harmful. We did all m our power to stop the evil, but iri. vain. Those who carried, on the illicit trade, with their appetite whetted by the enormous profits, stopped at nothing. Many of our officers were victims of their manoeuvres. This state of affairs 1 was daily becoming worse.*" Secret Stills. Mr. Heathcote then produced a mass of figures to show i the incorrectness of .. the statement that' the supply of drink was drying up and the appetite dying, out, and that only a few degenerate wealthy people were breaking the law. "In its report for 1921, the Federal Prohibition Enforcement Bureau of Washington declared triumphantly that it had seized over 90,000 secret stills and distilleries; oyer half a million gallons of illicit spirits; over five million gallons of illicit beer and cider. That was certainly a good haul, but nothing compared with the sly groggeries not seized. The Prohibition Commissioner for Ohio stated m his report that, despite seizures, thero are at least 50,000 stills operating m his Stato alone, as compared with 100 before Prohibition, and that while before Prohibition there were • 200 breweries, now there are hundreds ; of thousands. He means, of course, m i private houses.. Those aro the Prohibitionists' own 'figures. i "I will now give you some official figures as to the amount of liquor im- • ported into the State for the consump- > tion of a few Tich pedple, and to meet j a demand which is growing less. Exf ports of spirits to U.S.A. under Piohi- - bition from Great Britain :— 1919, 1950 t gallons'; 1920, 84,667 gallons ; 1921, 222,---1 391 gallons, (eleven months only). These r are the British official statements, and. c were secured by the London Bureau of y ths ' New -York Herald." Great Britain a further exported to Ca;.ada the followii ing amounts, much of "which was smug- ,. glod .into U.5.A..:— 1919,.. 4_4 : V563__ g.ib

Ions; 1920, 1,444,600; 1921, 3,554,314. (Canada Year Book, 317). Drug Addiction. "Another resu.lt of Prohibition is an immense increase m the number of people addicted to drugs. I will not speak at length on this subject to-night, or harrow you with\ pitiful stories connected with this sad development. I will content myself with giving two quotations. r Dr. Carleton Simon, head of the New York Police, Narcotic Division, stated last February that New York alone had on a conservative estimate 20,000 drug addicts. "Mr. R. S. Copeland, New York Health Commissioner, writes : 'Tho figures computed by the Federal authorities reveal the existence of from two to three million drug addicts m that country. Wo are receiving about iuteen times aa muc,h opium per head as any other country.' Why did not Mr. Hammond speak of this side of the matter ? Can you any longer be surprised at a clergyman raising his voice against Prohibition ? The wonder to me is that every clergyman m the land does not do the same. Perhaps when they know the facts they will. Increase m Crime. "Then notice the extraordinary increase m crime. For instance, indictments m Federal Courts for crimes of violence were: In 1912, 9503; 1921, 70,000! Mr. William H. Moran, Chief of the United States Bureau of Secret Service, writes as follows : 'America's first year of Prohibition was the greatest crime year it has experienced since 1897. If crime continues at tlie present rate, we. shall have need for double our present force of operatives.' "Mr. Hammond "then quotes some figures, proving that New York is less criminal than it was. Yet, on 27th May, 1922, the 'New York World' wrote as follows: 'Tlie capacity of Sing Sing has : been overtaxed. It held 1316 prisoners yesterday. There is sleeping accommodation for only 1200.' "The 'Chicago Herald,' of 9th June, 1922, writes thus : 'For the first time th« penitentiary 'of Joliot is overcrowded.' Figures could be quoted from many prov- - ing that Prohibition has not been able to prevent the wave of crime, the worst America, has ever known. "The Solicitor-General of TLS.A., Mr. James Beck, writes on crime increase as follows : 'While this abnormal increase is m part due to sumptuary legislation, for approximately 30*000 cases pending como under the Prohibition statutes, yet, eliminating these, there yet remains an increase m nine years of nearly 400 per cent, m the narrow sphere of Federal criminal jurisdiction. ' This is the outstanding fact. Since. Prohibition criminal cases iii U.S.A. have increased by leaps and bounds. Prohibition has been unable to stop crime, as we were assured it would.; now the question arises, has it caused crime? Judges Against it. "I said just now I would not pronounce judgment on that point, but I will call your attention to the fact that Judges and public prosecutors throughout U.S.A., m response to a question , circulated by the National Public Prosecutor at Washington, declare ■ almost unanimously that the great increase m crime may be attributed directly to the Prohibition law. . "It is human for individuals and na-. tions to err through ignorance," said Mr. Heathcote m conclusion. "It is criminal, for them to do wrong knowingly. The issue is m the hands of the people, and a; democracy must pay the ' . price of its own limitations. But I cannot bring myself to think that the people of ■ this country will vote Prohibition when they . know what evil results will inevitj. . ably follow. We have no right to coerce one another m such a matter ,_ and for half the nation to compel the entire people to enter the shambles of Prohibition would be one of the greatest political 'follies of history."-. ■'" " ~y~"