NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK.

White Ribbon, Volume 28, Issue 325, 18 July 1922, Page 8

NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK.

WOMEN J.l’jj.

We note that Mr Wilford has introduced into the Hou.se a Justices of the Peace Amendment Hill, to enahl(‘ women to be appointed as J.P.’s. In reply to a question in the House, the Minister of Justice said that the Solici-tor-Geneml held that under the present Ait. person did not mean woman. It would be an easy matter to alter the *.\ct, and allow women to be appointed, but the Government did not propose to do this. A NUISANCE. A Magistrate, in sentencing a mm on a charge of drunkenness to 12 months on Hotoroa Island, remarked: “You have been convicted 74 times; you are only a nuisance to the country.” True! and yet he might have been a useful citizen, and an ornament to his country, had not the Government licensed the sale of the poison which ruined this man and thousands of others. Why don’t Magistrates put the label on the guilty party, and pronounce John Barleycorn the biggest nuisance any country ever had. WOMEN AT RACE MEETINGS. During the hearing of an application for a liquor booth at the Wellington races, which came before the Hutt Licensing Committee, the police said that at the two last race meetings far too many women had been found drunk upon the course. Women had congregated in a room at the side of the booth, and he recommended that the room be kept closed. The licensee was willing to keep the room locked, and the officials of the Racing Club would do their best to see that drinking by women was minimised. The license was granted on the condition that this room be kept closed during the time that the license was available. Why did the Committee grant that licease? -From the police report, it was a temptation and a curse to the women visiting the races, and surely for their protection it should have }>een refused. We wonder were there any drunken men upon the course during the last two meetings. The poPce d d not report upon that. Men and women alike require protection from the deadly menace of the open bar. and

Prohibition is the best means of protection. Try it! “NEW YORK TIMES” ON MRS MARGOT ASQUITH. “Her view of American Prohibition will (when she is informed) be about that of other sensible people—that it is neither a complete success nor a complete failure; and that such as it is, with all its faults and failures, the large majority of the country’s inhabitants prefer it to any alternative in the way of repeal or mitigation that has yet been proposed.”

HEAVY PUNISHMENT FOR “BOOT LEGGER.” I’rolwbly the severest punishment ever imposed for violating the Dry was meted out to Edward Donegan by a New York Federal Judge. He was fined 65,000 dollars and ten years in the Federal prison at Atlanta. Who says U.S.A. is not enforcing the 18th Amendment?

THE THREE MILE LIMIT. No alcoholic drinks can be served within three miles of the American coast on any vessel. Do the passengers rush for them as soon as they are outside this limit? The bar stewards say “No.” Far less drink is taken now than before Prohibition Some men who used to imbibe freely on ship board are now total abstainers.

RAPING CLUBS AND LIQUOR QUESTION. An appeal from the Associated Club* of New Zealand for a donation to fight Prohibition at the forthcoming elec tions was considered by the Masterton Racing Plub. The letter stated that the Wellington Racing Club had given £IOO, and the Trotting Club a similar donation. The Chairman objected to any uch grant, stating that many of their supporters were Prohibitionists. Another member remarked that it was a matter for individual conseienres. and not for taking sides as a body. The Club declined to make a donation by a unanimous vote.

As Masterton is a No-License electorate, it is very gratifying to find the stewards of the Racing Club do not consider Prohibition such an evil that they are willing to pay to fight it. The Club were wise, because everybodv knows sport would be cleaner were there no liquor available.