Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5. 1933 PROHIBITION REPEAL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18056, 5 April 1933, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5. 1933 PROHIBITION REPEAL

Tliis week sees the (enninalioii in the United States of a great national experiment. It. was on January Hi. 1020, that the measure entailing the eighteenth amendment of the Const it a lion and prohibiting the importation, sale or transport of alcoholic liquor came into operation, having been passed by large majorities in both Congress and Seriate and ratified by threequarters, or 30, of the States. By equally decisive votes in the Legislature it has been decided, after thirteen

years' experience of the operation ot the prohibitory law, to repeal il. Alteration of the Constitution, how-

ever, is not an easy matter, and in fact never in the history of the United States has an amendment to this sacred document been repealed. The law provides that the repeal legislation now decided upon can become effective and be embodied as the twenty-first amendment to the Constitution only if it is adopted by 21) out of the 43 States, which means that 13 States, with only 4 per cent of the national population, can prevent ratification. When the last mail left America there was some doubt as to when tho transition from “dry" to “wet” would take place, uncertainty: arising as to how long it would take to secure .State ratification. The usual practice is for Congress to submit, its constitutional resolutions to the State legislatures. Tbit the Constitution provides that they may be submitted to conventions in the States, and as the Democratic plat form adopted last June calls for submission to “truly representative conventions in the States, called to act solely on that proposal," this is the plan that is being followed. The new amendment, if iatiliiwl Miul brought into elfect, will not bring buck the free-tor-nil conditions of the pre-prohibition days, but will provide for State autonomy on liquor matters and for Federal protection against liquor imports, into dry States. The reason for referring ratification to specially-created State conventions, instead of to the Legislatures, is explained by the statement that Congress clearly wanted public opinion to bo expressed upon the issue as directly as possible and felt, with .reason, that bodies specially minted for that purpose and no other would more nearly represent, the views of the people than Legislatures elected on other issues and l in existence for some time. Unfortunately, however, Congress omitted to make any provision for the procedure to be. followed as regards the setting up of State ratification conventions, leaving it- uncertain .whether these should be convened by the Federal authority or the States, and whether, in the latter case election should be by Congressional or Senatorial districts, or from the State •it large. According to Canadian mail advices there was at the beginning of March a wild “free for all" scramble among some of the “wet" States as to which should be tho first to create its convention and vote for repeal ratification. Fifteen States wore in the scramble, without apparently having paid much attention to the strict, constitutionality of any action they might take. Here they were leaving loopholes for the “dry" defenders, who are prepared to obstruct and delay the repeal by all means possible. “Amid all this hurly-burly and anxiety to clamber down off the waterwagon upon which so many of them havo been involuntarily perched for the last ten years," comments the Montreal Star, “the wets are leaving all sorts of opportunities for a strong and effective dry resistance. There is no denying the fact that thsro has been an unprecedented swing of public opinion against the Eighteenth Amendment throughout the country, but it is equally undeniable that there are today millions of United States citizens just as firmly and just as honestly op posed to liquor as they were. They cannot be expected to surrender their position to what they undoubtedly consider a retrograde movement in national history without the best fight they can put up. They will fight it, with every means in their power and those means will hij largely legal. It takes no prophet to see a long series ot appeals on the ground of uiiconstitutionality or illegality ot rat ideation procedure, instituted by the still powerful and wealthy drys. I*r< »h i l»i----tion," adds the Star, “may be out. of the Federal constitution, lmt it is still very far from being out of practical politics." Any defects or difficulties in regard to the constitutional amendment, however, seem to have boon got over for the time being by a Congressional amendment to the existing law

which enables be dr of full alcoholic strength to be manufactured and sold. 'The Volstead. Act, which brought prohibition into force, defined intoxicating liquor as all alcoholic liquors intended for beverage purposes which contain one-half of one per cent or more of alcohol by volume. The legislature last, month altered the figure from 1 to 3.H per cent, thus enabling 'beer with some “hick" in it. to be placed on sale. Wines and spirits, apparently, have still to wait, the full ratification of the now Constitutional amendment by 30 out of tho 48 States

of the Union. Meantime those-States which have anticipated the Legislature’s action and made provision in their local laws for tho sale of beer are ready to commence such sale as from April 7th. As there seems to be a general desire that the evils of tho old saloon shall not be revived, it is probable that in most of the States beer parlors on tho Canadian model will be legalised—-though this is a matter of purely local regulation Diming tho past few weeks the various

-tele authorities have been inundated witn thousands of applications for licenses. Whether the row change will succeed on putting the bootlegger, to whom the failure of prohibition is attributed., out of business is a moot point. A very substantial vested interest in the illicit sale of liquor has been built up and the habit of de-

fiance of the law which it has cultivated will not be easily broken. That, however, is a matter on which publi< opinion will need to have its sway, and il, as the poll at the November elections would indicate, the people are determined to put the liquor traffic firmly under control then the bootlegger must go and the sale of drink should be placed on a moiG satist.ic lory footing than it has been at any time in the last 13 years.