COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4497, 29 November 1922, Page 4

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS.

LONDON “ DAILY EXPRESS ” DOES SO; “ PUSSYFOOTISM ” ANALYSED. The London “ Daily Express,” commenting on the recent visit to England of Mr “ Pussyfoot ” Johnson, says editorially: “We object on principle to any foreigner conducting propbganda, partly .at least financed f;rom abroad, intended to alter our institutions. If wo want them altered we can attend to that ourselves. “ Moreover, when Mr ‘ Pussyfoot ’ preaches to us the delights and benefits of total abstinence we are entitled to ask him how it has worked in his own New Jerusalem. It liras been on trial there for three years. Five striking results appear to have been achieved. “First, a revenue of £100,000,000 has been lost, and this has tp be made up through general taxation: second, a, great army of detectives and spies have been created, costing America £10,000,000 a year, and most of them are already corrupted ; third, the new profession of ’ bootlegging' has arisen. Bootleggers deal partly in intoxicants smuggled over the frontiers, and partly in liquorg manufactured illicitly at home. These bootleggers in the aggregate are making a profit estimated at from £150,000,000 to £300,000,000 yearly ; fourth, brewing, distilling, and wine-making are now undertaken privately in hundreds of thousands of America homes with deleterious effects on the stomachs of millions of Americans ; fifth, despite the law, every known alcoholic beverage can be obtained 'n every American city and in ninetenths of the towns, at prices ranging from twice to five times those obtaining in pre-prohibition days.” A capable summary'of the “blessings” of prohibition, and a-true one. Do we need any or all of them in New Zealand—plus the .appalling drug-addiction, which, though the forget to mention it, is another " blessing ” ? Strike out the two bottom lines and let America keep her “ Pandora’s ” box or abomination ! :l!