UNITED STATES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14984, 11 August 1919, Page 9

UNITED STATES.

TRADE AND LIQUOR QUESTIONS

Dr. T. A. Mac Gibbon, of Christchurch, returned last week after a five months' trip to America most of which time was spent m Philadelphia and New York, where the doctor was engaged m professional business. Speaking of matters outside the realm of medicine, ' Dr. Mac Gibbon referred first of all to the lute war. He said that practically all the educated Americans recognised to the full the great work the British Empire had done to- i wards winning the war, and it was not this class that believed that it was the United States that won the fight. • He ' was very much impressed indeed with the great strides that industry had made m the States, and at the many signs of the immense wealth that had been amassed by the country before it oame into the' war. ■

Prohibition was imminent just before Dr. Mac Gibbon left, and fronVwhat hp noticed, the "reform" was riot regarded very much from a sentimental point of view, but rather as an efficiency move. The business oommunity was determined to have nothing m the country which would interfere with the efficiency of the workmen. The Americans realised that, afte*r the war there would be a lrage fight for the trade supremacy of the ' world between America, Great Britain, j Germany, and Japan, and they were out >■ to win it it- was possible to do so. J President Wilson had temporised a? little m his message to the Senate with' regard to the possibility of allowing ! light wines and light ' beer to be im- ! ported or manufactured, but the Senate ; would have none of it, though, m Canada they were permitted. Prices at the present time ii( the States were very high, and to li^e m the q\iietest possible manner taxed an ordinary man's purse. Dr. Mac Gibbon lived at a very quiet hotel, where quite moderate accommodation was provided, and his room cost him about 11s per day with no meals at all. No decent three-course meal could be got for less than 8s 6d, and on to all these expenses had to be added the tips, which, though supposed to bo 10 per cent, were actually 20 per cent on the' charges, and. sometimes more.

Dr. Mac Gibbon was not at all struck .with the general tone of the- average American paper. The shrieking headlines and unpleasant intimacy of the allusions to private people were nauseatinsj, and he welcomed the more dignified and restrained tone of the Dominion press as a positive relief. The Americans Had queer ideas as to humor, and their devotion to stuff of the 1 Mutt and Jeff type did not impress the doctor very jmuch.

After" an acquaintance with the cosmopolitan character of the American cities and with their teeming, thousand* lof Poles, Italians, and Rusian, Polish, and German Jews of a low type, Dr. iMacGihbon said he thought that Australia was not very far wrong m insisting on th« -policy of a White Australia. On the Western Ooasfc the Japanese were becoming more and more unpopular and aggressive. , They were getting possession of the land, and growing exceedingly "uppish." Even the Chinamen were asserting, themselves rudeljr, and no doubt were getting an undue impression of their own importance bceause they could easily earn four dollars a day at cutting wood.