PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.
TO THE EDITOR OF "THE TRESS." Sir, — mere is an obvious error in the statement made in the cable published to-day from Washington, mat "twenty States liave gone dry since the beginning of tne year.'' i'rdlnbition lius douotiess spread with amazing rapidity in ttie land of the Stars anu Sirij-fs, but that twenty States should go ury in less than 20 uay* sounds too inucli ot lightning speed, even for America. As a muitcr 01 lact. there wen; not twenty ,"states loft to go dry at the beginning of the year. twenty-eight States- hail gone dry previous to tlio last Noveiuocr elections. At that time four more were added to the list, thus leaving only sixteen to complete the drying up ol the who.e forty-eigUt. AY hat has happened since the beginning of the yea. is that more than twenty States have ratified the Constitutional i'rohibition Amendment. bp to January, fourteen estates had ratified, leaving twenty-two to make the threefourths necessary to give effect to the amendment. We now learn that at least that number has been secured at the State Legislatures which met>t in January. That means that Federal prohibition lias been adopted, and will go into eliiect in January next. But Congress did more than makp possible the adoption of the Federal Prohibition Amendment. In August last it .passed a Bill providing for prohibition during the war and the period of demobilisation. That Hill goes into effect on the first of July next. Tho manufacture of spirits ceased in America a year ago last September, and the brewing of beer also stopped on the first of December. On July Ist the sale and importation of all * alcoholic liquor in tiie United States will come to an end. TWe period of demobilisation will extend over January next, when the Federal prohibition will come into force. So that July Ist of the present year will see the entire liquor trade of America put out of action, with not the remotest chance of ever regaining its lost grip. And America, with this Old Man of the Sea shaken from its shoulders, will be in a position commercially, as neve;- before, to lick creation, to the extent to which. creation continues foolish enough to carry the heavy handicap of the liquor traffic Yours, etc.,
W. J. WILLIAMS January 21st, 1919.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19190122.2.5.1
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Press, Volume LV, Issue 16427, 22 January 1919, Page 2
Word count
Tapeke kupu
391PROHIBITION IN AMERICA. Press, Volume LV, Issue 16427, 22 January 1919, Page 2
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Press. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Acknowledgements
Ngā mihi
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Christchurch City Libraries.