FINLAND'S TROUBLES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2508, 21 November 1922, Page 1

FINLAND'S TROUBLES.

THE LAW UNDERMINED. LONDON "MORNING ROST." PASSES JUDGMENT. The London "Morning Post" of August 1922, contains an interesting summary of the situation in Finland, from its correspondent in Helsingfors. "The existence of Prohibition in Finland since 1919,” he writes, “has imposed heavy sacrifices on a State*whieh cannot afford to let a penny slip out. of its grasp, it is estimated that the State loses well over 200,000,000 marks (over a million sterling) annually in the shape of import duties on wines, cognac, liquers, etc. from abroad and the excise duty on native brandy, in addition to several millions for the maintenance of special civil servants, police and customs officials; against which huge figure it can only set oil the modest profit yielded by its monoply of the manufacture and import of alcohol for ‘“legal purposes.”

“This enormous lo>s might be plausibly’ defended if the cause of temperance in Finland where thereby advanced. Seeing on the other band that there is more drunkenness than before, that the drinking that goes on is more pernicious because it is in defiance of the law and also because much worse stuff is drunk; that the revenues abandoned by the state How into the pockets of smugglers and drink-jobbers; that widespread disregard of one law saps the foundation of the other laws on which the civilisation of the country is based; and that the efforts made to enforce the law tend further to undermine the public morale by the incentive given to espionage, blackmail mad delation, if is clear that the State is paying a heavy price for less than nothing. A foreigner here may regard the Prohibition business as a comic entertainment or an ugly scandal, according to hi.s temperament; the one thing he cannot do, unless he goes about with his eyes bound with blue ribbon and bis ears stuffed with cottcm-wool soaked in lemonade is to believe in its beneficent results.”

“Anyone who goes the right way about it can obtain alcoholic drinks iii the restaurants served in miner-al-water bottles or in coffee-pots; or, without protest from the management lie can take in his own hottie and secrete it in his pocket or under the table according to size. Nor is there any difficulty if inquiries be made ia the right quarters, in purchasing wine, whisky and other drinks from illegal agents who have replaced legitimate tradesmen." So remote Finland is suffering from the same evils which American “reformers” have inflicted, upon that unhappy country. Prohibition, which fails to prohibit, has mulcted taxpayers in an immense sum, and the law is an object of derision! Vote Continuance and prevent Finland's blunders from perpetration in healthv New Zealand. 06