AMERICAN PROHIBITION

Southland Times, Issue 19773, 22 February 1923, Page 5

AMERICAN PROHIBITION

NEW YORK WANTS BEER. THE PRESIDENT'S DETERMINATION. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association). WASHINGTON, February 20. (Received February 21, 11.15 p.m.) Several interesting things concerning prohibition occurred to-day. The New York State Legislature passed a resolution, memoralising the United States Congress, asking for a modification of the Volstead law, permitting beer and light wines. New York, with a tenth of the nation’s population, is the most influential State in the Union and first to take such a step, although it ratified the eighteenth amendment. President Harding, informed newspaper men, that he believed it would require twenty years’ education, perhaps longer, before the people became adjusted to prohibition and that the enforcement of the Volstead Law, showed progressive effectiveness. The Administration would take every available step to enforce the prohibition statutes. Mr C. E. Hughes, Secretary of State, sent a letter to Mr Mellon, stating that it would be inadvisable to publish the facts concerning the amount of liquor imported by various embassies and legations at Washington in accordance with the request of Congress, on the ground that it would be the violation of diplomatic immunity. Mexico announced that it would establish a fifty-mile wide-dry zone on the Mexican side of the border of the United States, in an effort to aid the American Government to enforce prohibition and prevent liquor smuggling.