PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

Southland Times, Issue 14634, 26 January 1911, Page 6

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

SAID TO BE .A FAILURE AN lOWA PRIEST’S VlEWS(Special (o the "Times.”) ' CHRISTCHURCH, January 25. Monsignor r owler, ’ a Roman Catholic Prelate from lowa, America, does not regard Prohibition as successfuls m tlie United Slates. Speaking to a reporter to-day, ho said that for three ..or four years lowa had had Prohibition, but it had proved a failure, and now .the Sta.te had gone back to local option. *ll bad been found that under State Prohibition there had been more evidences of drinking than under the old .system. A great improvement had been effected by the introduction of high licenses. Any man could open a saloon now by paying from 1000 to 2000 dollars for ids license. In New /Zealand, he believed, before a man could retail Ihiuor bis good character bad to be vouched for; but in the States anyone could lake out a license, and as long as lie obeyed the law'was allowed to continue holding it. When lie broke the law his license was revoked, it had been found that the high licenses had been very effective in regulating Urn traffic, and now the always in fear of a wave of prohUjfcjon, were in favour of it, though ■ they had opposed it strenuousUMfHis native place, Sioux Oily, lion of about 60,000 and a hundred saloons in it. Urohibilion law had been ijßPyv in the Stale of lowa the four principal cities, including Sioux City, had .simply ignored the enactment and had continued the saloons. In many cases the saloonkeepers liatU been taken before the courts, but their lines had been paid by brewers and wholesale liquor men, b\ whom many of the saloons were owned. The same position had arisen in’ other States, where Prohibition laws had been passed. "The opinion of the public in the States on the subject,' lie said, "is well divided, though the Prohibition vole at the last election was sliglitly lower than before. In the southern States, whorethere are many negroes, Prohibition was carried, and the effect has been that, while the white people can import their liquor from other open Stales, the negroes, by their poorness, are debarred. That, probably, was one of the factors that led to the carrying of the vote —so that the negroes could not get drink. " The independence of the various States, of course, affects the position considerably. Take the instance of Kansas City. The boundary between the Stales of Kansas and Missouri passes along a street in Kansas City. Kansas carried Prohibition, and along the Missouri side of the street there is a row of saloons; and as Missouri has a law against gambling, there is on the Kansas side a row of gambling saloons. The effect can well be imagined.” Turning to New Zealand. Monsignor Fowler said that lie had been greatly impressed by the evidences of progress shown in all parts of the Dominion. He was ashamed to say that, though in America, they knew that Now Zealand was a country that had done a great deal of experimental work in laws and was always making for progress in legislation, very little was known of the life in the islands. He had been struck by tlie up-to-dateness everywhere and the facilities. There was a prreat sympathy between Americans and Colonials, duo possibly to the democratic views of both peoples.