THE DRINK PROBLEM.

Otago Witness, Issue 3524, 27 September 1921, Page 24

THE DRINK PROBLEM.

LORD NORTHCLIFFE’S VIEWS. LONDON, September 17. Lord Northeliffe, in a special message to the Daily Mail, says: “Prohibition, as I have seen it in America and Canada, is another word for subterfuge of a humiliating ami demoralising nature. Drink is the absorbing topic of conversation among Americans, and is a universal jest. Friends assured rne that this perpetual talk on the subject drives people to drink who never drank before. It was not pleasing to me to see American friends, with long and distinguished public records, locking their doors and producing flasks. Nevertheless, this practice was almost universal. “All the best I<renoh wines, Scotch whiskies, and English gins are readily purchasable. The dealers are making enormous profits. One of my companions dined on the roof of a great New York hotel. Cocktails were served and champagne flowed as it has never done in Lon don since the war began. Who had been bribed—the police? Of course the magistracy (?) Joes not know it, but illicit drinking and selling and bribing prevail very high up. There is an abundance of sham drinks in the small restaurants. I thought: ‘Here is a prohibition company, drinking limejuice, soda, lemon squash, and crushed grape juice.’ T did not know that each had in it a large quantity of alcohol. The price of a lemon squash' was 7s 6d. “New York is riddled with drinking dens and illicit stills, where horrible pm sons are manufactured for residents in the cheaper localities. A distinguished professor said to me: Parts of America are always more or less dry. hut places such as New York have never been dry, and never will.’ I went fo America with an open mind. 1 left it convinced that prohibition as 1 saw if is not the right solution u£ the drink problem.’’

ILLICIT LIQUOR TRADE. NEW YORK, September 18. The Federal liquor law officials discovered a huge manufactory, employing hundreds of people, and operating illicit •drug stores. This organisation was supplying half of the United States with whisky, gin, and rum, falsely labelled “London” and “Cuba.”