PROHIBITION IN MAINE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 87, 3 October 1911, Page 5

PROHIBITION IN MAINE

A TRADE VIEW. By Ti legraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. In connection with the Maine Referendum reversing constitutional prohibition, a cable was received from New York ou Saturday by the Auckland Provincial Council (Trade organisation), stating that the vote for the repeal of prohibition in the State of Maine was 00,481, and that the vote against repeal was 00,461, or a difference of twenty votes in favor of repeal. The official recount is now being made and the final result of such recount will not he known until after October 0, and possibly may be delayed until December. However, the fact is important that the prohibition majority at the previous poll in 1884 was. 44,000 in favor of prohibition. This has now been reversed, thus resulting in the repeal oif constitutional prohibition by the narrow majority of twenty votes. Commenting on the foregoing, M r. W. 0. Sloane stated that this was the first opportunity that the people of .Maine have had to express their will on constitutional prohibition for twenty-seven years by their votes, and whatever the result of the recount of the recent referendum may be, the tremendous gain of 44,000 votes in favor of licenses is most significant. He could not. in face of these figures, see how the New Zealand Alliance can claim the re-wit as a. victory for prohibition. Proceeding, Mr. Sloane said In; considered that ex-Presi-dent Roosevelt put his linger oil the spot when be said: "We all want facts. I could sit down and talk theories hut it is facts we want. The State of Maine lias been trying prohibition for sixty years. Surely that is long enough to try anything. What has been accomplished in the State of Maine '! People are waiting to hear these facts, and to sit on them as a. jury in order t-o get the right view point." Mr. Sloane further remarked: "Now, Maine, by this overwhelming reversal, lws ■shown thai public opinion is in favor of license, Maine has only followed the example of her sister Stales, so that now Maine. New Hampshire, Vermont. Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, lowa, Michigan, South iXikotu, Alabama, Nebraska—in fact, east, west, south aiul north, fifteen out of seventeen States who have tried prohibition in one form or smother have ail abandoned and repudiated prohibition, and the wave of sentiment which swept across the continent lias now receded back 'by the knowledge gleaned from .hitter experience and disappointment of prohibit ion." hi conclusion, he said: "Surely the American people of these States should 1)0 given the credit of having adopted prohibition in good faith, with honest ami earnest desire to further the interest and welfare of their citizens. No sensible per»on can now believe these people would have deliberately repudiated a system adojited with high moral purpose hod they found that that system was making for sobriety, for prosperity, or for good citizenship. The only conclusion consistent with aeason and common sense is tluU the people found they had built- up false hopes and thai conditions were not only no better, hut were far worse than tliey had been under the license system."