A COMPLETE ANSWER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2944, 3 October 1925, Page 3

A COMPLETE ANSWER.

YOUR BOY’S CHANCE.

By WALTER J. ADAMS. (Of the Honolulu Advertiser.) Official Journalist accompanying the United States Fleet on its recent visit to New Zealand.) “Prohibtion will give your boy a chance,” reads the wording on the bill-boards and hoardings. It will indeed. It will give him a chance to be a sly drinker, a sneak, and perhaps a bootlegger. It will give him a disrespect for law and eventually for his country. It will, perhaps, bring about the condition which prevails in America to-day where millions are spent on enforcement methods and billions on bootleg liquor. It will convince him that laws — which lie has always heard are beneficial —can also be silly. Later lie will find that laws can well be broken. From this discovery to actual law-breaking is but a short step. If will give him a. chance to slyly procure and stealthily drink vilo mixtures of an alcoholic nature; and will give him a chance to lie blinded by rotten liquor. It will —if he is a enterprising youth—give him a chance to operate a fast, armoured boat, and run liquor ashore in one of the many coves which go to make New Zealand’s coastline a potential paradise for bootleggers. It will give him a chance to see the delectable spectacle of “scofflaw” activity. He will have a chance to see prohibition agents, police, revenue and customs men, and private agencies discomfited by (lie bootlegger, and—here’s the point —the private citizen. It will bestow the priceless privilege of sneakishness and the great boon of hypocrisy upon him. It will give him a chance to see otherwise law-abiding citizens delightedly violating a law destined to deprive them of an inherent right — the right of living as they choose. It will permit him to read in the daily newspapers of a constantly growing list of scandals, crimes, and nasty episodes developing out of law violations.

It will enable him to put a premium upon the slyness that makes law violation safe for the violator, who is backed by public sentiment in liis violations. It will give him a chance to purchase inferior liquors at an exorbitant price, and to pay for that liquor not only in money but in self respect. It will give him a chance to learn deceit, distrust of his own laws, and disrespect for constituted authority. If you doubt that he will have these chances read the daily press of America; remember that these are just the disclosed instances, and not the hundreds of thousands of undiscovered violations of various laws that take place daily in America.” The record of New Zealand’s men all over lire world is sufficient, proof I bat your boys chance under Continuance is the best chance he could possibly have. Advt. 2.