PROHIBITION AND OTHER MATTERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20582, 4 December 1928, Page 10

PROHIBITION AND OTHER MATTERS.

; TO Tip EDITOR. Sib,— There is an old proverb, “ The truth only offends,” hence the descent of our prohibition scribes to vulgarity .and abuse, and a return to point of others of their kind in their, support. Evidently they expect the privilege of eating their cake and having it, as majr be judged from their whines which convict them still further of that intolerance peculiar to their class. But I don’t expect to convince our local enthusiasts who, like Lucifer, would sooner reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, and, like William Hazlitt’s Englishman, as true to-day as when it was first put into print 128 years ago, “his zeal is as furious as his antipatics are unfounded, and he firmly believes himself the only unexceptionable, accomplished, moral, and religious character-in Christendom.” ■!

When their opponents write at any length anything illuminating to those not obsessed with the one _ idea it'is a fault, and editorial qualifications of their letters are anathema to them, and “Total Abstainer” (here they tread on dangerous ground), they insinuate, is a paid propagandist. It reminds me of the editor of a well-known Liverpool publication some years ago. When lie sat worrying over the financial embarrassment of the concern, a bellicose local fanatic rushed in and accused him that the journal was “in the pay of the Pope.” “ I only wish to heavens we were,” replied the distracted editor. I still insist that the racial and religious issue was the greatest factor in the electing of Mr Hoover, and previous issues of our local organs convict my opponents of the very same religious and racial animosity that counts for so much in the United States, and can only be realised by those who have made a study of America in America itself. 1

Dean Inge, Mr Wicldiam Stead (a former editor of The Times, and now editor of the Review of Reviews), and a great number of paid propagandists of the Nordic Association might be able to convince our diehards if they condescended to enlighten them on the subjects I could inform our worthy friends of the prohibition cause why and in what manner Mr William Thompson (“ Big Bill ”) was crushed previous to the late election, and as bur letter writers seemingly are ignorant of American- affairs outside of their one bugbear, it would be simply encroaching on space- and abusing the courtesy of the editor if I were to inform them. I quite understand the object of keeping America in view and relegating other subjects to the background. Let us switcli off this American mania and look at what so-called degenerate , wine-drinking Roman Catholic Italy has accomplished since Hie war. Italy is quite the other extreme from the United States, since she has no advantages, but a multitude of handicaps. After centuries of oppression under the tyranny of Austria, that country that has in the words_ of Mussolini, “covered Europe with gibbets,” at the conclusion of the war, when President Wilson’s bins against the Latins deprived Italy of her expected reward for her aid in the Allied cause, introduced a problem for the Italians that would have crushed tic initiative'and courage of any other race. With the greatest men o’f the age, Mussolini (H. G. Wells and other slanderers to the contrary) at the head of affairs and ostracised by the vest of the world and shut out of the United States and Australia and cordially hated by our local prohibition letter writers, a nation of 45,000,000 people, rapidly increasing in numbers, has come into being, thoroughly organised and efficient, with a great future before it and proud of its achievements. “ It is, above all; necessary,” says the National Review, “for any Power which wishes to be friends with Italy to remember at all times that she is'now in the very front rank of great nations, and that any attempt to treat her otherwise can only recoil on the head of its author.” I suppose my opponents will by this infer that I am in the puy of Mussolini. It is foolish for your correspondents to quote from a speech of Mr Hoover’s after his election. It was merely <£mpty rhetoricthere was really nothing' else he could do but vindicate his intended policy , or else outrage common sense. A reference to the wealthy Catholic vote shows a lack of acquaintance with the dispute in relation to Mrs Smith’s lowly birth—not Air Smith this time-—a dispute which was engineered with all the Machiavellian cunning of the American politician and encouraged by tile snobbery inherent in human nature, and was instrumental in depriving Mr Smith of considerable support from the wealthy Catholic electors. In conclusion, I may state that not alone Itnlv but Encland and the countrip*

of the European. Continent would never have recovered in such a remarkable manner as they have'done since the war if their energies had been misdirected in combating a modern “ Frankenstein " they would have created by forcing prohibition on the poeple. Surely, the fact of an army and navy and a host of officials trying to i enforce prohibition in the United States iputs it out of court. As a proposal from Italy or France, in the first instance, it would have been howled down at its.birth as an outrage on liberty and as a sinister design of the Pope to occupy the Presidential chair or the Throne of England. History proves my contention. The Emperor Napoleon 111 proposed a European disarmament when hranee was at the summit of her power, but England declared that this was merely the plot of a Papist Emperor, and he was insulted by an offensive refusal. Carlyle still sang his fulsome praises of good, solid, pious Germany”; Baron Stockmar and the German element at the court intrigued for' the downfall of France in 1870-71; and wo helped to build the. German Colossus which almost accomplished our destruction a few years ago. Mr Kellogg’s second-hand disannanient proposal is merely humbug. Com* ing oyer to Europe in an armed ship . P eace is laughed to scorn on the Continent, where everything is viewed in its true Perspective and judged accordingly.—l am, etc., _ Total Abstainer. Dunedin, December 3.