The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1930. PROHIBITION.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 January 1930, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1930. PROHIBITION.

It would appear from the cabled account of the proceedings surrounding the ten years anniversary of pioln wtion in the United States, that prohibition itself co-ncinues to (be avgarded in quite a jocular way. It is manifest from all the reports; the' appeals of the president to respect the law; the enormous cost of ‘•enforcement, ” and the lives involved in the trading going on under the title of bootlegging, that prohibition is far from something actually in being. Visitors to America, return with all sorts of cheenul stories of how prohibition does not prohibit, and now the latest stories are to the effect that American steamers pre carrying their own breweries, so that once out of the marine limits, those aboard may have their fill of beer! The very latest story affected the American official party en route to the Naval Confer ence, so that in the highest circles it is not a crime evidently to flout tho law of the land at the rirst opportunity. In referring to the general question of the l effect of prohibition on the United States, a contemporary points out that two antagonistic points of view are, of course, presented. Upon the one hand there are those who claim that it has brought considerable benefits in its train. On the other side there is the argument that, after all, Prohibition does dot prohibit, that the law does not operate for those who can afford to disregard it, and that the abuse of it is an evil as great as, if not greater, than any that Prohibition was intended to sweep in.ny. This much is clear, that of the difficulties which were anticipated in respect of the enforcement of the principle embodied in the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution there has been an abundant, indeed an embarrassing, ; harvest. The controversy between “drys” and “wets” cannot obscure, certain outstanding factors in the existing situation. The onlooker cannot but be impressed by the cost entailed in the enforcement, or rather the partial enforcement, of the provisions of 'the Prohibition law. The House Appropriations Committee at Washington does not recommend an increase in the expenditure to that end during tlwj coming fiscal year. Evidently it considers the amount of nearly .35,000,000 dollars appropriated for enforcement during the current year sufficiently large. President Hoover’s Law Enforcement Commission has presented a report which seems to reflect as much perplexity as assurance on its part. It begins by pointing out that “it is impossible wholly to set off the observance, of Prohibition from the large question of the views and habits of the American people.” It was apparently unable to "discover any reliable figures from which to gauge the extent of the enforcement of the Volstead law. It describes the number of arrests, however, as indicating a “staggering number of focal points of infection.” Following the receipt of this report President Hoover has been impressing upon Congress the immediate necessity for providing more adequately for the enforcement of the law. Violation of the Prohibition law, he declares, accounts for more than half the total number of arrests in the United States, with the result that upon the Federal courts has bean a burden of a character for whii'li they are ill-designed, and which is in many cases entirely beyond their capacity, so that iiistice and law enforcement are being defeated. Upon the Presidential statement with its I rank admissions, comment seems to be superfluous. The existence of :a, “nonfused situation” is conceded, and Mr Hoover evidently accepts the Law Enforcement Oommiission’s view when lie suggests that further consideration and investigation as to the facts and the forces in action will be required before sound public opinions can lie arrived at. Two chapters of a. work, which tho. Otago Times has iust received, bv T)r Bern-, recently Professor of Anatomy and "Benin of the Faculty of Medicine at Melbourne University, are devoted fo what is called the prickly problems of Prohibition. Tutor alia "Dr Berry writes—- “ From wliat one gathers in the States from its more eminent, responsible, and reputable citizens, the real da'nger

of American Prohibition lies in the fact that the Eighteenth Amendment has brecl a contempt for the law of the land. . .When a modern, highly civilised, and complex, nation, or rather a group of nationals, like America, passes a law which it cannot enforce, which many of its best citizens say quite openly they have no intent.on of obeying, and hold in contempt, it is really open to question, whicii is the more serious oil the two evils, the intoxication of the few, or the lawlessness of tne many.” fine issue is fairly put. in an attempt in the United (States to eradicate one evil another evil has been created. Other countries cannot but be finding the American experience of Prohibits on distinctly instructive.