Prohibition.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 83, 5 October 1896, Page 2

Prohibition.

Tne following letter, from "One Who Had His Eyes Open," appeared in the Dunedin Star : — " The question ' Does Prohibition prohibit V is at the present time exercising the public mind throughout New Zealand. I enclose a copy of the Boston Evening Transcript, dated October 5, 1895, wherein the editor o£ that journal, dealing with that much' vexed question in its relation to the 3tate of Maine, the oldest, I think, prohibitory State in America, writes thus : — ' Still the fact will remain, in spite of all the impressive solemnity of our correspondent, that hundreds, if not thousands, of the people who annually visit Maine are ready to testify that the enforcement of the prohibitory law in the cities and large towns of that State is a screaming farce, played to hoodwink the people. Asunimpeachable evidence of this fact we reproduce the statement ot the Rev A. H. Wright, pastor of tire St. Lawrence street Congregational Church, Portland, made in a sermon > last Sunday : The condition of things here is simply amazing to all honest, > unprejudiced, and right-minded citizens. Liquor-selliug is a crime in this State in the eyes of the civil law ; , liquor-sellers are criminals. Yet here in our Christian City, governed by i Christian men, we are told that not less than 300 places are open and in 1 full operation for the sale of intoxicants.—The people who deny these r things evidently do it in a fit of intellectual desperation. The facts are i against them, and they have no other recourse. We would inform our cor- ' respondent that Roosevelt's reputation ' as an enforcer of law could only be ' damaged by connecting: it with the , shameless way in which Maine officials allow the prohibitory law to be both ; secretly and openly violated.' Sir, I having been in the State of Maine and ' other prohibitory States last year, I can thoroughly and honestly endorse ; all that has been stated by the editor \ of the Transcript ; and every fair- ' minded person must admit that he, the , well-known Congregational minister of Portland, being a dweller in the State,, is a belter authority than Mr A. 0--1 Begg, who must have passed through' \ it either blindfolded or with *■ determination not to see what is* really going on. There are ' none so blind! as those who will not see.' "