PROHIBITION.

Shannon News, 21 September 1928, Page 3

PROHIBITION.

" RESULTS IN AMERICA.

In ilie course of an address to women at' Wellington, Miss <3race L. Houlder, who has come to the Dominion to assist in the campaign of the New Zealand Alliance,' gave an account of the results following the carrying of Prohibition in the United States. Since the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment eight years ago, 95 per cent, of the territory of the United States, she said, had become “dry,” and 65 per cent, of the population was enjoying freedom from the handicap of drink. Neve: was Frohibition sentiment in America stronger than to-day, said Miss Houlder; never in its history was Prohibition more secure. It came because the people wanted, it, and it was staying for the same reason. It had come to stay. It was a fixture in the life and law of .the land. No other achievement, in human, history had conferred such wonderful. benefits upon the masses. The huge sums of money formerly spent in drink found their waV into the mothers pockets instead of those of the saloonkeeper. Tremendously improved conditions resulted, better food, better, homes, and more comforts. While wages paid to wage-earneis increased in 1926, 25 per cent, in comparison with 1918, the cost of living had been reduced over 25 per cent. Saving banks reported an increase oi twenty-five million new savings bank depositors since Prohibition. Labour banks held to-day over eleven billion dollars of the workers' savings, while sixty million. persons held “insurance” of some kind. As an illustration, said Miss Houlder, of the sentiment of America’s best womanhood regarding a maintenance of Prohibition, in March this year, at the great annual Congress of the Women’s National League of Law Enforcement—at which twelve million women were represented—strong resolutions declaring uncompromisingly for the Prohibition policy and its enforcement, were carried. The National Uea'rue. of Women 'Voters, the National Y.W.C.A., and Parent-Teacher _ Association likewise had declared similarly during the months of April and May of this vear, while the National Feder,tion of Women's Clubs, with a mem-bev.-hiiJ of over seven million women, had recently demanded “hands off Prohibition" and “no interference with the Volstead Act.”