PROHIBITION THE MASTER METHOD

White Ribbon, Volume 20, Issue 9, 1 October 1948, Page 7

PROHIBITION THE MASTER METHOD

"Let us examine the laws relating to intoxicating liquor. They are a strange medley of prohibitions and permissions. It will be louid from experience that they succeed to the extent that they embody prohibitions and that they fail in so far as they contain permissions. Thus the present licensing laws in England have some met it, not because they allow the sale of intoxicants in certain premises and at certain times, hut because they prohibit the general sale of intoxicating liquors, because they prohibit its sale, even in licensed premises, for 15 or 16 hours a day, and because they prohibit the sale to persons under a certain age. An investigation into the drink problem and its social results will clearly establish the fact that all the trouble arises from the permissions under the law, and not from the prohibitions. "If we define prohibition as a principle then, of course, there are differing degrees of the application of that principle. Unfortunately, in the minds of many people, prohibition has come to mean the social condition resultant from the application of the principle of prohibition, regardless of the fact that a state of complete prohibition is, from a practical point of view, as idealistic as a state of complete truthfulness or complete honesty. "YVe do nm condemn the laws prohibiting theft because a certain minority of the population disobey these laws and offend the social conscience. YY’e should not, therefore, judge prohibition because it is to some degree evaded; bu we should judge it in comparisor vith tie nature anil extent of the '*nnk problem in the community before prohibition became operative. "We can never make progress towards our ideal by lowering the application of the principle. . . . Every problem of licensing reform can be tested in the light of the prohibition principle, always reminding ourselves that such reform is only effective in so far as it prohibits or restricts the sale of drink and that it is ineffective in so far that it is permissive in its intention. . . . There can be no doubt that where prohibition is effectively enforced and where it has the support of public opinion, it does represent the most successful way of dealing with the liquor trs fSc.” These excerpts are from a lecture delivered under the auspices of the World Prohibition Federation, by Mr. H. Cecil Heath, BA, Barrister-at-Law (London), at a conference held July, 1948, in Lucerne, Switzerland. The full lecture is obtainable from the Federation, 52, Buckingham Palace Road, London, S.W.I. {Price 3d. each, post free.)