PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19616, 21 October 1925, Page 4

PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN.

ADDRESS BY MR C. H. POOLE

TRADE ADVERTISEMENTS 1 CONTRADICTED. PROSPEROUS AMERICA. In pursuance of the platform campaign of the New Zealand Alliance for the abolition of the liquor traffic, Mr C. 11. Poole addressed a public meeting in the NorthEast Valley Town Hall last evening. Mr Poole represented an Auckland constituency in Parliament for 11 years, and is at present a candidate for the Grey Lynn electorate. Recently be spent some four years lecturing throughout the United Stales. Mr .Jonathan Rhodes presided over the meeting, which was not a very large one. Mr Poole expressed his pleasure at the opportunity of speaking of the development of this great progressive reform movement. The speakers of the Alliance were moving up and down the country like shuttles in a loom, and he doubted if its organisation had ever been so perfect ys it was to-day.—(Applause.) He referred to excellent meetings he had had in other parts of the dop-union with his ' associate. Mi - Will French, who wrts now laid aside with Illness. The liquor traffic was once more in the dock, and the people of New Zealand were being asked to well and truly try it. In America the traffic had been put in the dock for every crime in the calendar, mi l' after being well and truly tried by 100.000,000 people it had been convicted and condemned.

They were face to face with a difficult situation. In the first place the trade had unlimited capital. It was not doing much platform work, though he understood that Mr* Armstrong was going to answer the Rev. Lionel Fletcher on the platform this week. The trade's policy had been to take control of the public press, and by enormous advertisements and by smaller advertisements and by exercising an influence upon the policy of a good many of the papers it was carrying on a publicity campaign of misrepresentation. The Alliance, by reason of its limited means and because a section of the press had been closed to

it had found it necessary to get Into direct touch with the people from the platform and ask them to tel! their friends' and neighbours what the truth really was. He wanted - those present to go out and try to give some of the facts that he hoped to advance with regard to the progress of the

prohibition movement. The liquor party had gone underground. Their policy was to “keep low and lie like hell,” and they hoped to mislead the people right up to the poll. The succe.ss of prohibition in America bad been demonstrated beyond any possibility of dispute.

There was also the local demonstrations of .success in the no-license areas of New Zealand. The liquor party was leaving these ureas severely alone. Mr French was a New Zealander born in Auckland who went to America and had had 33 years

in newspaper work and in prominent industrial positions. After a long absence he returned ’to Auckland to visit his old .mother. He was so appalled' at the misrepresentation he saw in this country that he offered his services free to the New Zealand Alliance for a lecturing campaign.— (Applause.) The liquor party' was putting up a smoke screen, but as sure as day followed night this thing was coming to 'New Zealand, and some of them wanted to shee it come immediately.—(Applause.) Advancing civilisation and the demand for efficiency both required that the liquor traffic should go, and go it would. ■ Regarding the situation in America, ho ■had a good knowledge of things as they wore there, after spending four years in public platform work from end to end of the country. Ho delivered over 10CO addresses and spoke to over 2,009,000 Americans and never said one word on prohibition. If he had been impressed with its failure he would speedily have ‘‘blown the gaff - ’ when he returned hero. But when he returned and saw the difference between the United States under prohibition and New Zealand he felt that the very stones would cry out if he held his peace about what' he knew.—(Applause.) Tho electors of Grey Lynn were wondering where he . waa?<biit he' felt that when Mr .French took ill he had to carry on. He was more interested in carrying prohibition than in getting, a seat in'Parliament. Not that he did; not appreciate the confidence of the people. He felt that this was a great momentous issue that had g r t to he settled speedily in this country.—(Applause.) Commenting on a statement by the f ou-tinna-nce Party that Abraham Lincoln was pot an opponent to the drink trade, Mr Poole said that the trade was committing sacrilege when it made such an allegation. “They actually want you to believe that he was a man who would stand for liquor against an-- and vet it was, Abraham Lincoln who said: ‘When

: the'slave trade is settled the liquor business is the next one to he dealt with.’ The b speaker quoted incidents which went to show that, far from being an opponent of Lincoln was one of its most ; ardent champions. The demands on the resources of charitable associations in America had gone down bv 75 per cent" With the great cans© ' of misery, poverty, and disease removed we ; would have the same results here, and ■ ! money would be freed for social betterment. In spite of the far stricter activity ; by the police the arrests for drunkenness ■ throughout the United States had decreased bv 509,000. Alcoholic insanity decreased 63 per cent, as compared with the last three wet years. Yet the Liquor Party had the audacity to siw that Ai-« : '’a bad been turned by" prohibition. Each American Government had been drier than the one before it, and the driest president that ever sat in the presidential chair was its present occupant.—(Applause.) Both the great parties had nominated four prohibitionists for the presidential chair. President Goolidge was committed to a dry policy that, was going to clean America right up. The chairman of the Education Committee of the Hotel Proprietors’ Associar tion had declared that hotel proprietors were three to one opposed to either the repeal or the modification of the national prohibition law. They recognised that prohibition had raised their business on to , a, new level. The fiTnest hotels in America had been built since prohibition came in. —■(Applause.) The lecturer described some of these magnificent structures which are .now great community centres of wellbeing, and said that the same thing would happen here in New Zealand as a result of prohibition. He had been tremendously impressed by the progress of America over which a great bloodless revolution was sweeping. It was taking the form of the working men becoming tho owners of the great industrial plants. Out of all the automobiles that America produced only - 5 per cent, was exported. Of her vast total production only 11 per cent, was exported. The purchasing power of the > people was so great that they were aide to absorb all the rest. The labour banks Wore growing every year. The Railroad Brotherhood of America, which operated 600,000 ■ miles of railway, had put up a bank 22 stories high costing £1,000,000, and about 50 other labour organisations had started their own banks. There were 0.000,000 operatives now who were sluire- ’ holders in the great industrial corpora-. ..tipps for which they worked, and that was Why there were no strikes there. T’viless ..Britain pulled herself together her purchasing power was going down, and then,- God help Now Zealand. If the £225,000,000 spent on booze in Britain every vear was saved it would bring about a i evolution. —(Applause.) While America yas going ahead by leaps and pounds our i people at Home were at their wits’ ends. Nevertheless a great campaign was now being launched at the eleventh hour under Air Philip Snowden .to free Britain from Ibe liquor traffic.—(Applause.) Air Poole gave'-further illustrations and descriptions of the present prosperity of wrierica. With ‘ reference to the trade’s claim that it gave '£l,£oo,ooo in revenue, he pointed out that the people had to pay £3,500,P00 to got (hat return. The liquor revenue was so c:\rtqarketl for cleaning up the results of llie traffic that, it was not. worth getting. Superintendent AlTlveney, of the New Zealand Police Force, had investigated eondi- ’• frbhs in ’Los Angeles day and night recently, and had failed to find one drunken man. In the great citv of San Francisco lie

lypl found one drunken man. Efficiency was sp necessary nowadays that we could Jrofi live alongside tho great American nation unless wo changed our tactics. Tho sweetest thing he could say about the liquor business was that it was out-of-date. —(Loud applause.) After Mr Poole had answered some questions ho was accorded a hearty vote of thanks.