OTHER PAPERS' OPINIONS.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16644, 14 November 1925, Page 4

OTHER PAPERS' OPINIONS.

THE WOOL MARKET. In the course of a few days the disturbance cause by the general election and the racing in Christchurch will be forgotten, and attention will be concentrated on the wool market, for the first sale of the season is to open on November 16th and the catalogue closes on November 10th. Wool is coming in very slowly, for the weather conditions have not been favourable to shearing. There is the hope that the market will be good, but no definite reasons can be given why this should be the case. Latterly there has been a better tone displayed m the Bradford market, and fine wools have been in demand with a hardening tendency. This is no doubt due .to the hold-up of shipping, for a great deal of Australian merino avool must still be awaiting shipment, and should have been in Bradford store by now. It was well known that Yorkshire houses were low in stock, and were buying from hand to mouth merely to keep machinery employed. With the hold-up of shipping, stocks are short, hence the rise in price. The same thing happened in respect to butter, except that butter responded more quickly than wool. When the ships get moving again and heavy supplies reach the terminal markets, values will adjust themselves. —Wanganui Herald. EXAMINING PROHIBITION. Too late to have any influence on the referendum in New Zealand, the report of Representative Hudson, of the United States Congress, based on a wide-flung questionnaire, will provide people in this country with an excellent picture of the conditions resulting from the application of the Volstead Act. It is fairly clear that while the consumption of alcohol has diminished, there is still flowing into the United States a fairly substantial tid.e of illicit beverages, while the manufacture of intoxicating liquors in the Republic is still surprisingly heavy. Before it is possible to say anything very definite on this report, it will be necessary to scan its details, • because, from the use made of the report of the committee of the United States Council of Churches, it is obvious that these findings can be misinterpreted through the quotation of extracts. There is one point, however, to which attention may be directed in the meantime, because it goes to the root of the whole question: the opinion of the American people themselves. When all the disputants have had their sav, when the figures have been put aside and the surmises of the advocates of “wet” and “dry” have b.een permitted to balance each other, there remains the cardinal fact that every serious investigation of the re' suits of Prohibition in the United States shows that the popular view is strongly in favour of its retention. At times it is said that the Volstead Act is protected against repeal by the Prohibition fanatics, tho criminals and the bootleggers; but it is obvious that, even allowing that the Liquor Party’s estimate of the numbers of these people are correct, they are not enough to prevent the repeal of the law if the American people really want to get rid of it.—Southland Times.