THE PROHIBITION DEFEAT

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10286, 22 May 1919, Page 4

THE PROHIBITION DEFEAT

When the first count was published the Rev. Mr Gray and the leaders of the Prohibition campaign behaved with the manliness which is the best feature of sportsmanship. He did not go into hysterics of triumph, nor did he treat the final soldier vote to anything more than a fervent expression of hope that the vote would come out on the Prohibition side. As a matter qt course he indicated his own opinion; but that he had a perfect right to do. Now that this hope has been lost by the soldiers’ verdict, which gives Continuance a majority of nearly 10,000 on the whole half-millioa line, the Prohibition leader takes the verdict in the same spirit. Seeing in the newspapers the cabled report of tbe statement of one of the Prohibition leaders in Sydney—the Rev Mr Hoban —that the Alliance here had information that tne soldiers’ vote did not represent the real views of the troops, and had been manipulated, the Rev. Mr Gray promptly declared that a- mistake had been made between two sets of votes taken, the one officially, including all the troops, the other taken unofficially over a section. The first is the deciding factor, whde the second refers to a surmise regarding a thing not material. The president ot the Alliance declares emphatically that his /association has received no such communication about the deciding factor. He stands, in fact, by the verdict of the tribunal invoked. His attitude is moat creditable to him. More than that, no one can say; and less would be unworthy of the spirit which he has shown. The Australian prohibitionist, who seems to have been somewhat hasty in taking the wrong attitude, had before him a different and better explanation of tho soldier vote. .The “Daily Telegraph,,, of Sydney, . some weeks ago, commenting on the indication of reversal of the citizen verdict by the soldier vote, pointed out in a thoughtful article that the result showed that the manhood of New Zealand differed from the womanhood, and concluded that it is well, under the circumstances, that the men won. Had it been otherwise, a victory of tho women by a harrow majority in a matter involving so new a departure would have been followed by considerable discord and much difficulty in upholding the law. Upon this point we do not pretend to indicate Mr Gray’s opinion. Our object ia to congratulate him on setting his Australian fellow-prohibitionist right, who had taken a wrong turn in face of a definite signpost. What the party here and in Australia will say of the report that “President Wilson, in a message to Congress, recommends tho repeal of prohibition” —which was carried in America, not by referendum, but by the action of the Legislature — “in so far as it applies to'wine and beer,” is for them to decide. What the report means, if it is true, is that the President, having seen how alcoholic beverages are used in other countries, thinks that his own countrymen have, through their legislators, gone too far in a difficult matter, and must, in their own interest, be asked to take a step back.