PROHIBITION.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19157, 14 November 1927, Page 8

PROHIBITION.

FAILURE IN UNITED STATES. DUNEDIN RESIDENT'S OPINION. [THE PRESS Special Service.] DUNEDIN, November 12. "Prohibition in the United States is a fiasco and a failure and is regarded as nothing more nor less than a huge joke." This comment is the candid opinion of Mr Percy Braithwaite, who has returned to Dunedin after an extended tour of America, England, and the Continent. Mr Braithwaite, who stated at the outset that his sympathies were with National Prohibition, gave the matter close study and related his impressions gained from actual observation to a "Star" representative.

"Liquor of any description can be had for the mere asking," said Mr Braithwaite. He went on to say that the first person he • saw drunk m the United States was a woman, who was coming out of a large restaurant in San Francisco. He approached tho proprietor and questioned him about the matter. The proprietor said very naively: "I wonder where these people get drink from?" A little while later Ee offered to supply Mr Braithwaite with a cocktail or a whisky and soda if he wished to have a drink. Drink could be had in any quantity in the best hotels and cabarets. Agents of bootleggers could be numbered in thousands.

In the principal hotels in which Mr Braithwaite stayed in the United States, the first question asked was: "Would you care for a cocktail?" AH around there was striking evidence of people being served with liquor. The law wavS more or less openly flouted. In one of the best hotels in New York Mr Braithwaite saw eight people under the influence of liquor in one room. There was also a great deal of drinking among the younger people, and this was one of the outstanding disgraces of the whole thing. Then there were the "speak easy" resorts. In these places, bars stocking every brand of liquor were installed. These bars were exactly the same as the ones in New Zealand, even to the brass rail along the front.

"The enforcement of Prohibition is «™ ge j° ke -" sa 'd M r Braithwaite. The police do not take any particular notice or. interest in it, as thev are well paid to keep their eves shut,'"