PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

Shannon News, 26 June 1925, Page 3

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

MR POOLE RECITES ITS BENEFITS

was the lecture, delivered by Mr C. H. Poole at the Maoriland, Theatre to an

audience which, though scanty, was \ay appreciative. Mr Roberts occupied the chair. Mr Poole, an Auckland ex-M.P., said that some six years ago he had been appointed lecturer in America on the question of New Zealand's possibilities from the tourists' viewpoint. At first, the idea did not sound attractive, but, on hearing that Mr Crawford Vaughan was to perform a similar office for Australia, he decided New Zealand should also be represented. One of the chief reasons lor his going to America was to help in wiping out prejudice in New Zealand against America. "The future guarantees oi progress, contentment and peace are in the hands of the people w e represent; the great branches of the Anglo-Saxon family," continued the speaker. Mr Poole said that until he undertook the American tour he did not realise what it meant to work for Uncle Sam, who kept his men working to the last ounce of energy. The speaker had travelled from New Orleans to Hudson Bay, and from Los Angeles to Nova Scotia, speaking in 1000 halls in as many different towns. His room-mates were as interesting as they were diverse. From the hospitality of the Chinese who cooked everything .in his frying pan, to the millionaire with, his squad of servants, he had never heard one discourteous word against Newi Zealand. In speaking of the greai reforms brought about by Prohibition Mi Poole mentioned how the status of hotel-keepers had risen, and that since its inauguration, the finest hotels which America to-day possessed had been erected, and there never was a more estimable character than the jioiei_ proprietor. Prohibition in America had gone into the realm of settled questions, but it was entirely dis-torted-by* the press of America, which was controlled by the vested. interests.

Nowadays, the speaker continued, the lunge corporations were not controlled by oiie or two men, and he instanced the Standard Oil Company, where thousands of operatives wen; shareholders. "Every, man is. related, in bonds and shares, to the organisation to which he belongs," he added. The steel workers of Pittsburg now invested their money in shares instead of squandering it on "hootch," while nearly every man is building his own home. That was what Prohibition had done for the American worker. Fellows that once went home roaring drunk, now directed their energies to poultry farming and he knew one such case where the man owned his own house and lot and ran a -'iO.OOO egg incubator.

An Australian, whom Mr Poole met in Suva, said he had not seen one "drunk" in America between New York and San Francisco. Infantile paralysis had made awful inroads on the lives of our children in New Zealand, but the havoc wrought in America before the' enforcement of Prohibition was immeasiireably worse. Finland and America, two foremost nations in the Olympic Games, were both Prohibition countries, but New Zealand had not yet made the experiment. Mr Poole concluded by saying he had but fringed the whole question of the benefits derived although the little he had told them would encourage them to discuss it more fully in Iheir own homes. After the collection had been taken, a vote of thanks by acclamation was accorded the speaker and the chair.