MENACE OF PROHIBITION

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 66285, 2 October 1925, Page 8

MENACE OF PROHIBITION

ADDRESS BY MR H. SCOTT BENNETT There was a big attendance at the Theatre Royal last evening, when Mr H. Scott Bennett delivered a lecture on the Menace of Prohibition. Mr R. Coulter occupied the chair.

The people of New Zealand, said the speaker, were soon again to be asked to decide as to whether or not prohibition should be carried in this country. He said that it was not a question of prohibitionists versus the “liquor trade,” but rather an issue between the former and those who were opposed to the introduction of a measure that had been tried and failed —a measure that was demonstrably productive of social evils, of hypocrisy and deceit. It had been very truly said that the vast majority of the opponents of prohibition cared very little for “the trade” but they valued individual liberty. Prohibition had now been in force for five years in America, and he considered that that was sufficient time to judge the effects and effectiveness of the measure, and he claimed that the results showed that prohibition did not prohibit. America to-day demonstrated only too clearly the disastrous, soul-damning effects of prohibition. Facts ar.d figures were so plentiful in suport of the statement that there was no small diffipulty in determining where to begin. The witnesses that he fvould put in the box were impartial men whose standing in American life could v not be gainsaid. Dr. S. Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, said: “The time has come to speak one’s mind on the subject of the shocking and immoral conditions which ‘prohibition’ has brought about. . . . We have introduced intoxicating liquors into parts of the country where it had well nigh disappeared. Prohibition cannot be enforced. Judges sentence men to fines and imprisonment for having been detected in doing what they themselves do without detection” The next witness was the Detroit Free Press. This paper had actively suported prohibition, but in its issue of April 25th of the present year, it was constrained to say, inter alia: “Reluctantly we arrive at the conclusion that the Eighteenth Amendment (prohibition) was a fearful error.” It then proceeded to say that they thought prohibition would protect the youth of the country; now, however, it was proved a “sad and depressing fact that the Eighteenth Amendment (prohibition) has brought no blessings to the youth of America. It is a fair contention that, on the contrary, it has brought a curse. . . . The fearful increase in drinking and consequent deterioration of morals, to say nothing of the health among boys and girls of high school age, and even of more tender years, is as deplorable an evil as ever has fallen upon this country. . . • Th e United States

must get rid of prohibition in its extreme form, substitute moderate but effective liquor legislation that will have’ the support of public sentiment and, above all, save the youth of the nation from its present peril.” Afterfive years of enforcement the following are figures from the Cleveland Association of Justice: “Major crime has increased alarmingly over the corresponding time for 1924. The figures are: Robbery, an increase of 24 per cent.; housebreaking, and increase of 65 per cent.; burglary, an increase of 70 per cent.; murder, an increase of 83 per cent.; automobile thefts, an increase of 89 per cent.; assault to kill, an increase of 100 per cent.; manslaughter, an increase of, 163 per cent.” The Prohibition Commissioner’s report for 1924 showed the seizure of liquor and illicit .stills to be as follows: Stills, 1921, 9746, 1924, 10,971; distilleries, 10,932, 15,973; gallons of distilled spirits, 413,987, 1,672,743; gallons of liquor, 496,300, 5,329,528; cider mash, 428,300, 8,744,916; automobiles seized, 706, 5214; boats and launches, 23, 236; arrests; 34,175, 68,161. How could they claim success for prohibition in the face of such figures. Compare fhe saving capacity and the health of the two countries. In New Zealand, the average savino- per head was £75 8/7; in America it was £5/ 9/-. In New Zealand the death rate per 1000 was 8.7; in America it was 11.81, which figures showed New Zealand ahead on both counts. Another wellknown journalist, writing in the American Mercury, December 1924, says: “One or two cocktails in the old days of freedom made the average American dinner party, at least outside Manhattan Island, somewhat devilish. .Tb-day the dose is as much as the liver and lights will bear.” We had an example of the disastrous results of prohibition of our own country in Waihi. There he saw some “home brewed” spirits, of which the smell alone was enough to put him off. There one could buy whisky—but at from 28/- to £2 per bottle. Two thousand three hundred Government agents costing nine million dollars per year, supplemented by the Department of Justice, revenue and customs, state and city officers were employed in the United States to enforce prohibition, and yet whisky and other spirits continued to pour in. New Zealand would surely never tolerate a system that produced such results, It was infinitely more than a question of “to drink or not to drink.” It was a fight against a grave menace, threatcning alike the individual and the nation. Rev. Mr Rybfirn: Is it prohibition that is at fault or the enforcement of it ? Mr Scott Bennett: That is just the point. It cannot be enforced. Prohibition does not prohibit. Although the Government spend millions of dollars yearly in maintaining an army of spies and agents who have the right to enter private houses at any hour, and a fleet of armed vessels, the liquor question was not better, but worse. Mr Rvburn: Does not the trend of the lecturer’s address go to show that prohibition came rather too late in the dav. and that if it had come soon-

er it would have met the case; that they had become so accustomed to the drink that they would get it at any cost.

Mr Scott Bennett said he would like to point out that it had been overlooked that recent waiters showed that liquor drinking was on the increase since prohibition, and that young people who had never been tempted by the open saloon were drinking surreptitiousl/, and that of these recruits very few used discrimination. The meting closed with a vote of thanks to the chair and to the lecturer. Mr Scott Bennett expressed his appreciation of the splendid and courteous hearing that "he had been accorded.