PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16574, 5 November 1921, Page 6

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

UNFAVOURABLE REPORT. NOT RIGHT SOLUTION OP DRINK PROBLEM. (By Lord Northcliff® in the “Daily Mail. 1 ') Prohibition as I have lately seen ifc, and as it has been described to me by friends in many parts of the United States and Canada, is another word for subterfuge—subterfuge of a humiliating and demoralising nature. And if ever the prohibition agitation should succeed in Great Britain, that which has happened in the United States must certainly follow at home. There will be wholesale oorruption of the revenue officers and the police, the setting up of a vast and wealthy organisation of illicit liquor sellers (in the United States they are known as ‘ 1 bootleggers,” because the illicit dealers in the Southern States transported whisky in their tall india-rubber boots), n great increase of drunkenness, of crime, and of disease. The immediate effect of Prohibition would be to cause everyone to talk about drink. It is the absorbing and" boreeome topic of conversation among the Americans. It is th<* diurnal matter of discussion in their newspapers. In the theatres and music halls it i 6 the universal and monotonous subject of ;,est. And oue of the worst cases of this perpetual talk about drink, os American friends have over and over again assured me. is that it drive© people to drink who never drank before Assuming that onr law were tho same •8 that of the United States—that you may drink that which you had in your house before the enactment of the law, and invite your friends to share it—there would be a great crowd of sycophants round the rich man’s table. There would be a now kind of burglar, who would drill his way into the concrete wine cellar. But these are comparatively small ills. The atmosphere of subterfuge and evasion would go from the lowest to the highest in the land. It is not pleasing to me to w*e American friends with lone and distinguished public records locking their door in club or hotel and producing a flask. It cannot be pleasing to them to do what is degrading and, incidentally, to break the law. Nevertheless, it is universal ; and since English friends long resident in the United States adopt the same evasions, I presume that, human nature being as it is. sly drinking would be as widespread in Great Britain in the event of the victorv of “ Pussyfoot,” as it is with the Americans and some of the Canadians. • One of the ohief facts of prohibition is that alcohol of all kinds has so increased in price that the and profits of illicit liquor selling are enormous. I was unable to see Mr Anderson, of the Anti-Saloon League, as he was ill, but he sent me a welltrained woman representative to talk things over with me. and she made the beat of her case. She pointed out that the saloons in New York City are definitely closed. But against that there are any number of illegal drinking ee- , fcablishmenta and any amount of open Illegality. Every kind of alcohol can he obtained with comparative ease in New York City. Every one of the best wines of ! Prance, the whiskies of Scotland, or the gin of England can be readily purchased at a price whitjh shows that! the illicit dealer makes an enormous profit. One of those with me went to dinner •n the roof of a great hotel in New York City. The customary cocktails were served; and, for the rest, champagne flowed as it never lias in London since the war began. Who had been bribed P The police of course. The magistracy ? T do not know ; hut T do know that illicit drinking, selling and bribing go verv high up indeed. There is a great abundance of shamtemperance drinks, served in a)l sorts of small restaurants. T was entertained at one; and as I looked about J obseii-. ved : “ Here, at anv rate, is prohibition.” The company were drinking lime juice and soda, lemon squash, a delightful-looking preparation called * 4 orange crush.” and one or other of the many preparations of errape juice the unfermented j nice of the Californian grape. I did not know that each of these drinks had as its base a large quantity of alcohol, usually gin, thei price of a lemon squash being about 7b 6d. A number of young girls, obviously ladies, were prosent. So much for the more respectable •ide. But in addition to this, whole quarters of Now York City are riddled with drinking dens and illicit stills—places where horrible poisons are manufactured in purlieus corresponding to our Soho. And wo should have the : *arao ills at homo if Great Britain were ’‘dry”—the drinking'of methylated ftniritk wood alcohol and the poisons that are secretjv brewed in hack bedroom**. Lately there have been a great many Coat Its in the United States from these madly preparations. The number of drug addicts,” as they are called, would increase. Drug-taking is not so common with us as in the United States, hut there are medical testimonies as to the increased sale among ns of morphing cocaine and coaltar drugs. And there is no need to dwell on the crime that results from drugs And the drinking of alcoholic poisons. There are many amusing sides to the ■ham prohibition now being attempted on tho American side of the Atlantic. It is, of course, illegal either to advertise or to transport alcohol, but not illegal to advertise flasks. The whole of the American i>eople seems to have gone mad on the subject of flasks. I see small jewelled’ flasks lor women; flasks of tremendous capacity for the traveller to far places. A well-known mineral water advertises itself, quite legally, by a picture of its bottle and by its ■ide a flask, intimating that the "particular mineral water blends well with strong drink. Advertising of alcohol is illegal, advertising of flasks is not. The anti-saloon advocate told me that I must disregard New York and the kind of people I met there; so I put questions to chauffeurs, printers, railwaytnen, a friend who was concerned with one of the greatest industrial ** plants ” in the West, and they all told me the same storv of illicit selling and drinking all over the country. And thus efficiency all over the country is impaired. As a considerable employer of labour, I do not hesitate to say that an immense amount of nonsense is talked about the superior efficiency of workpeople under 44 Prohibition!’ * If prohibition existed, the subject might* be a fair basis for discsission, but it does not exist. I am only properly to gauge the efficiency of one class of workpeople—those engaged in tny own crafts of paper-making mid printing, and I can truly say that the efficiency of British paper-making and newspaper printing is at least as high fs that of any ether country in the jrorld. How does all the champagne, bur- 1 . Rundy, claret, sherry, Rhine wines, ram, whisky, brandy, and gin get into tte United Btatos? Seme say via Canada, and the Wept Indies some say tired into Now York City, .San FvhHi-

cieco and other ports. It is coming in increasing floods, and there is no stopping it. At home, too, we should find that puch an army of revenue officers* would be required as would raise the cost of attempted prohibition to an impossible figure. Taa financial authority T said, “The cost of the extra police and additional revenue officers to deal with your 110 millions must be a vast annual charge.” “That.” ho replied, “is true. But do .you realise that we have lost the whole of the income wo derived from duties on wioes and spirits and beer? Not even the gigantic income of the United States can stand such a. loss.” A distinguished nrofessor said to me; “ There aro parts in tho United States that were always more of less dry. They always will be dry : but parts, such as New York City, have never been dry and never will h© dry.” And what is the fate of those who are “dry”’ from conviction? One cf the roost poignant complaints came from a lifo-long tcetataller. His calling was that of commercial traveller. “Prohibition hits rbe hard.” he said. “ How can it hit you?” I replied. “My hotel bills throughout the country aro increased because the hotels can no longer make profit from selling alcohol.” T went into the United States with an open mind on tho subject. I went away convinced that prohibition as T saw it ab work there is not tho right solution of the drink problem.