PROHIBITION.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 February 1925, Page 4

PROHIBITION.

SIDELIGHTS FROM WITIHN. (By n New Zealand School Teacher in Canada.) Alberta is a province of quasi-prohibt-tiou. Spirits can be obtained from Go-

vernment stores on production of a permit which costs 9s per annum. Nothing less than a bottle can he obtained at ally one time and there is a limit to the monthly allowance. Hotels arc permitted to sell as beer a mixture containing principally brown sugar and water and resembling mongrel halfbreed stout. From the Government Liquor Stores a slightly improved mixture is dispensed as beer, but there it must he bought by permit, endorsed on each occasion, and not loss than a gallon can he got at any one time. I omitted to state that in tho hotels “ bars” are abolished. If desirous of obtaining a drink one enters a foullysmelling filthy room in which are chairs and tables, and tables and chairs are the only furnishings. As soon as one takes a seat, a waiter dashes up with a glass ol the concoction and through this one must struggle it one is to get the value given for one s money. (Two drinks ior a quarter 25 cents.) This place, like the rest of Canada, went dry during the patriotic fervour period. A year ago it recanted and returned to this condition. To-day Ontario is the only dry province in tho whole Dominion and hilt for the. country districts where the worse effects of prohibition are not felt, it would not he dry there. And believe me tho evil effects of prohibition are very, very real. AYo have all heard the pathetic story of children suffering through tho drunken parents. This is sad, and no one can gain-say it, but in this prohibition there is an infinitely sadder story to tell. It is freely stated among open-minded unbiassed observers that for the few years that Alberta was superficially dry, more liquor was consumed per year than has been the case in any one year since. Aforeover, during that period there grew up. and is evident to-dav, a wholesale disregard and contempt for law and order. AVliyf During that regime it became customary to evade the law. Everyone did so and in many eases openly and flagrantly. Never a party was held but what- the guests were invited to bring “something in their hips. AA omen and young girls were not only expected to do this hut if they failed to produce their supply they were not welcome. As a result, many who before had never tasted and never wished to drink liquor were compelled to imbibe or he socially ostracised. Booze parties with their well-known consequences became such a recognised feature of the city life especially, that thousands of sane, level-headed voters —the hackhone of any British community-real-ised that their wiser counsels had previously deserted them at the behest of noisy sentimentalists, and when the opportunity came, they, in no uncertain manner, reversed a hasty, ill-con-sidered decision. Ontario recently voted dry by a large majority. Acs, but the cities where the most malign effects of prohibition are felt, voted wet by a much larger

majority than ultimately graced tlio platform of the O.T.A. (Ontario Temperance Act). Jingoists, sentimentalists, soiqi boxers, etc., boosted by the “ bootlegger ” and ” moonshiner,” were able to get to the country voter. They told him harrowing tales—much more than I have even hinted at—ol the awful effects of liquor in the cities. Amazing yet oit-times truthlul figures were quoted to show immorality, intemperenee. insanity, ami a. thousand and one evils which owed their cause to over-indulgence, but they omitted the essential point, and that is this: With I’rohihtiou more become victims of drink than where drink is free to all. The country voter didn’t realise that In' was accentuating the evils of tho traffic and at the same time making fortunes lor those who were hugely behind tho Prohibition propaganda.