The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1924. LIQUOR IN AMERICA.

Southland Times, Issue 19277, 23 June 1924, Page 4

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1924. LIQUOR IN AMERICA.

People who travel in America usually form very decided opinions about Prohibition, being ranged either whole-heartedly for or against the Volstead Act, which means that they either declare the Eighteenth Amendment to be a complete and glorious success or a total and ignominious failure. It is, therefore, interesting to find a New Zealand business man, who is not associated with either of the contesting parties in this country, quoting the opinion of men he has met and giving his own view of the law. Sir George Fenwick is so wellknown. in the Dominion as a man not prone to commit himself lightly to opdnions that his word on the working of the Volstead Act in the United States cannot fail to carry a lot of weight. Sir George Fenwick does not disguise the fact that in the hotels light ales were procurable at meals, and that people who wanted spirits were advised as a precautionary measure to obtain a prescription from a “reasonable” doctor, but he took care to inquire about the general effect of Prohibition, and he discovered that opinion was in favour of it. From San Francisco to New York, in the various States through which we passed, I discussed the liquor question with men in various walks of life (he writes), and very frequently beard the opinion expressed by responsible men that the outcome of the law was, on the whole, beneficial, accompanied, however, at times by the expressed view that it was an infringement of the people’s liberties which at first they resented, but that as time wore on this resentment lessened. One intelligent fellow-traveller —a professional man, and a “moderate” —said that any antagonism to the law that he had felt had vanished, for he believed it was going to work out to the nation’s distinct advantage. He mentions the presence of a movement for the modification of the Volstead Act so as to permit the consumption of light ales and wines, and he noticed the vigour of the attacks on the Volstead Act on the score that it is creating new problems, but after mentioning the evidence for and against the Prohibition law he sums up in these words: Meantime, I have come to the conclusion that among the moderate and sober thinking section of the American people there is a majority who are satisfied with the Volstead law that Congress has enacted, that the pride of the nation is at stake in seeing to its enforcement, and that a good few years must elapse before it can be absolutely determined whether it is to be an unqualified success or not. My personal belief is that the benefits that will accrue will quite outweigh the evils. This is the considered opinion of a man who is not tinged by fanaticism or special interest for one side or the other, and it is a judgment on the situation which carries conviction.