AMERICAN PROHIBITION TANGLE

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15041, 8 April 1919, Page 3

AMERICAN PROHIBITION TANGLE

The following information in regard to the American Prohibition tangle is taken from the New YorE "Journal of Commerce' 'of February 24th 1919 :— Albany, Feb. 23.—Prohibition has again taken its place in the front rank of legislative issues, and promises to remain there until the passage of some kind of enforcement bill. The situation 'is not at all to the liking of most of the members, as prohibition is a topic which appears to them to be • fraught with danger to their personal political hones and ambitions. i LIST OF MEASURES. Seven different prohibition or antiprohibition measures are ibeffcre the legislature. They are: The ThompsonMoNab JBill, ajso known as the AntiSaloon Et-ague Bill, designed to provide for enforcement within thevState of the Federal amendment and delegating enforcement power to the State excise department, which would be called the Depnrtmont of State Welfare; the Walker Search and Seizure Bill, intended to permit the confiscation of all liquors kept for private consumption j tho Dowling-Smith Bill, -which would place proprietary compounds containing more than one-half of one per cent, of alcohol j under the provisions of the public health | law applicable to ha"bit-forming drugs; j the McElligott "Bill to-rescind the ratification resolution, and three" measures introduced by Assemblyman Welsh ,of Albany, two of which are aimed at the' repeal of the local option laws and iiie .third defining "intoxicating liquors" ?s those which contain more than ten per ceut,of alcohvl.'1ENFORCEMENT PROBLEMS" DIFFICULT. Other phases of the eriforceme; i problem also will be the sibjftt oj prolonged i . ■■■':•■->

conferences and «J'«ci *-s»on. 'It is admitted by the rlrj leadors that »a*ny amendments, involving concessions by both Houses, will be attached to the Rill before it is ready for action on the floor. / ! The battle over the Enforcement Bill | will be fought out first in the Senate, j 'Assembly leaders take the position thatj jit is unfair as well as unnecessary to' place the members of tEe Lower House ] on record on the enforcement proposi-l ! tion until after the "Senate has taken action. The members of the Senate do not come \m for re-election until 1920, the Assemblymen point out, and, therefore, it is better that the legislators who havo an extra year of grace shall blaze the trail and thereby make the Assembly action a matter of concurrence or non-1 concurrence rather than one of initiation, . Members of the Lower House declare that it. would mean political sui-l cide for them to pass some prohibition measure which later might be rejected by the Senafe. \ v i

. New. Zealand Electors, do not forget that no popular vote was taken on Prohibition in America. The ratification of the "War Prohibition measui'e was the act of legislatures, not of the people direct Also remember -that FrQay's cables informed us that in tlie Chicago Mayoral Election on a popular vote Pf ohibriionwas repudiated by a quarter of a million majority,*' .