AMERICAN ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1925, Page 2

AMERICAN ITEMS.

LATEST CABLE NEWS

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. THE POUND STERLING. , ' WASHINGTON, January 17.' ' The Post Office Department has issued instructions restorin', the rate of exchange for the pound to 4fc>7 this becoming effective on January *M for money orders in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Irish Free State, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. U.S. AND IRELAND. WASHINGTON, January 16. The appointment of an American Minister to the Irish Free State will he authorised if the Rill introduced in the House of Representatives by Mr Boylan the Democrat of New York V is passed. "•>/ AFTER FIVE YEARS. EFFECTS IN U.S.A. WASHINGTON, January 16. Prohibition 10-day celebrated its fifth birthday.

Senator Morris Sheppard, the author of the Eighteenth Amendment, issued a statement saying, that at every election since the law came into effect the people had signified approval of prohi- J bition by increasing the dry majorities for the House and the Senate. The candidates for this Congress reflected accurately the public sentiment of the nation. During the operation of prohibition there had been a decrease of half a million annually in the ariests for drunkenness. There had been 25 thousand fewer ’industrial 'accidents, and a decrease in the mortality rate had developed, adding three years to the average human life. The “210” cures had dwindled to 27. There was less poverty ..ml a saving to tho pcple of 74,000,000 dollars annually Prohibition had closed many orphanages, while it had crowded schools and had doubled the number of investors. ~>. “Prohibition, declares Senator Sheppard, is law of the land, and it will remain so.” WASHINGTON, January 17. In nil expression of the Opposition viewpoint, Captain Styaton, the founder and head of the Association against the Prohibition Amendment, says:—“Every person knows that prohibition is universally disregarded, and that the population, particularly the young, have no moral scruples about breaking this law. Every Congressman and every Eighth Grade student knows that even the men who passed the law break it in the course of their daily lives in Washington, as disclosed in one recent divorce case. A wave of indignation is sweeping over the Country against the law. ‘The only \argumqnts sor prohibition are those from the propaganda hook of the Anti-Saloon Heague. Against this we have seen three thousand deaths from poison liquor in 1924, with approximately 6090 persons disabled. Most of tiiese fatalities occur in the so-called “dry” States. 1 hereJjM are more crimes now than ever ther«HH| were before. Huge sums have been paid in an attempt to enforce the Dry Law, these approximating 10,016,000,000 dollars in five years. The mounting list of arrests and of convictions for liquor law violation is proof of tho complete failure ol Yolstedism.” A NEW ELEMENT. NEW YORK. January 1(5. One of the many scientific investigations to he made during the solar eclipse on January 2-1, will be a, search for a new element. Dr C. C. TCiess, of the Bureau of Standards, will he one. ol the observers oil 11 10 airship Los Anglos, and will photograph the sun's corona with a special camera. It is expected that v lie will he able to abstract conclusive i pi*iMif that cornniuin. a metal which is ' merely suspected now. is an actuality. At the moment of the eclipse, the central body will lie completely obscured, the only light coming being that from the corona.