THE BACKWASH IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVIII, Issue 1061, 7 July 1910, Page 23

THE BACKWASH IN AMERICA.

PROHIBITION’S LOVELY BLACK EYES. (From Our Special Correspondent.) There is a shine in the tents of the Prohibition Kedar, and lamentations and explanations are being poured forth in the Press and on the platform. Has not Alabama, after a little experience of the sweet savour of Prohibition, rejected it as' part of its State constitution, to the no small dismay of the Prohibition party, who counted upon a decisive victory in that State? But the best laid schemes of mice and men “gang aft agley,” and Alabama retains its freedom to vote out Prohibition at the first suitable opportunity. Georgia is another Prohibition State of which we often hear upon the platforms of teetotalism. Over indulgence in alcoholic drink is on the increase in that State, as will be seen from the following figures:—l9oB, 2,650 cases; 1909, 3,451 cases; increase, 801 cases. Theoretically, drunkenness should not exist in the State of Georgia, but it is evident that, as in Maine, it is not only in existence, but is steadily increasing. One of the greatest blows which the “no-license” party in the United States has received came from Massachusetts. The other week four large centres of population in that State went back from “dry” to “wet,” one of them—Worcester, a city of 130,000 inhabitants—returning to license by a very substantial majority. Only the other day Boston, the ancient capital of Massachusetts, continued its license system by an enormously increased majority. Last year the majority in favour of license was reduced to about 2,000, but this year it jumped at one . bound to 27,122. One really wonders what the “nolicense” party have to offer in the way of explaining this increased majority. Boston is by no means a flighty community, it has a solid, substantial, and business-like people, who can assess the true value of the professions of teetotalism, and evidently they do not place much confidence in that party. Maine is such a huge Prohibition farce that even its advocates fight shy

of references to that at one time always abounding example of beneficial (?) Prohibitory legislation. In a recent issue of The Licensing World an illuminating exposition of the negative effects of Prohibition in Maine were given, and to this might be added the following suggestive little comparison. Portland, Maine, is a seaport very similar in population and general conditions to Halifax in Canada. The former is under “no-license” while the latter is a “license’’ city, and the following are the criminal statistics of both cities for 1908: — Portland. Halifax. Arrests for drunkenness 1,678 841 Arrests for drunkenness and disturbance :371 — Total arrests 4,461 2,090 It is not necessary to comment upon these figures. Nothing could more clearly show the failure of Prohibition to prohibit, either in Maine or anywhere else. From a close and impartial study of all the circumstances, the writer formed the conclusion that the fail-ing-off in the consumption of alcoholic liquors in both the United States and Canada in 1908 and the first part of 1909 was due to economic rather than moral causes. This view is confirmed by the revenue returns of the present year. In the United States for the three months from July to September, 1909, the increased duty on spirits collected by the Internal Revenue amounted to 1,791,272 dollars, as compared with the corresponding period of the previous year. In the case of malt liquors, the increase for the five months July to November over the previous year totalled 777,65 8 barrels.

It is amusing to note the change which has come over the tune played by the “no-license” party. Last year there might have been heard triumphant anthems' of rejoicing over the manner in which the works of Prohibition were shown in the pulling down of the United States’ revenue from alcoholic liquors. This year, when the figures are the other way about, with a wider area under Prohibition than ever, the tumult and the shouting have given place to a severe silence on the part of the Prohibition party. So authoritative and impartial an authority as "Bradstreets,” of New York, only the other week pointed out that the reviving rate of consumption of alcoholic liquors was symptomatic of increased material prosperity, and not the result of Prohibition. In the face of such weighty and unbiassed testimony the erstwhile vapouring of the anti-liquor party dissolves into thin air.

Yet still this fearful and wonderful party pursues its ill-starred way. Doubtless it will continue to do so while there are fanatics ready and willing to put up the money necessary to pay the salaries of the army of officials who make a fat and easy living off harassing the liquor Trade. It is part of the writer’s duty to go through the “flimsy” of “the Associated Prohibition Press” of Chicago, as well as “The American issue,” the organ of the Anti-Saloon League, regularly. It is a well-known statement that there are plenty of gullible people in this world, and there must be before they can swallow , the stuff which is published in these prints. The distressing thing about them is the manner in which religion, in the'lrue sense of the term, is injured by the mixture of hypocritical cant and humbug which may be found all through the pages of both publications. How ministers of the Gospel can lend themselves to such specious devices almost passes understanding. If they only knew-they are being made the tools of designing men, who find “booming” the Prohibition party easier work than honest—if mayhap

harder —labour. It is reported that Mr. Bryan is to make Prohibition a plank in his next Presidential platform, and if this is the case no greater proof of the decadence of a really great man could be adduced. No wonder the Democratic party threaten to repudiate him, and even the Prohibition party is not likely to take him to its palpitating bosom.

Truly the ways of the Anti-Liquor party in the United States are wonderful, and their frantic endeavours to prove that black is white only inspire ridicule. Sane, sober men have found out the hollowness of the professions of Prohibition, and the “wave” —of which we heard so much last year, and which was to sweep the whole of the North American Continent —is now receding and threatens to engulf the Prohibitionists themselves. The U.K. Alliance is an ostensibly respectable body (its members are fond, anyhow, of asseverating their claim to smug respectability), but association with the American Prohibition party shows that necessity makes people acquainted with strange bedfellows. Let the Trade in England rub the fallacies

of Prohibition as exemplified in america into their antagonists at every possible opportunity. The latter cannot gainsay actual facts, and these are entirely against Prohibition.