AN AMERICAN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN [To the Editor of the

SPECTATOR.] Sut,—We beg your attention to a matter which deeply con- cerns us and—you. The principle involved is one which is accepted on both sides of the water as a control both of motive and action—viz., the principle of fair play. We are writing

not as Government to Government, but just as citizens, just plain citizens to citizens.

We most earnestly ask you to set yourselves against the smuggling of intoxicating liquors over the border and through our coastal waters from the lands to which you are loyal. into that which is to us the Homeland. We assure you that Prohibition in this country is not a failure. We shall not argue about it—we know it. There arc here children who have never seen a drunkard. There arc jails which stand closed because they are needless. The saloon is now an evil memory. Our breweries have gone out of business of are being padlocked. Prohibition which to the vast majority of our people is in its effect the safeguard of our homes, the protector of our schools, the hope of the new generation, is menaced from two sources and two only : first, illicit manu- facture here, and second, importation from your home lands. The first we can handle. Toleration of the few law breakers— and relatively they are few—will cease. They will soon be driven to cover. The second we seem unable to control. We ask you to help us. Stop the wholesale bootlegging from beyond our borders and our case is won. Multitudes of you are fair ! We are kindred. Kin can ask no more' of kin than we have from you, in your sympathy and in your purpose to help. But the sanction of your law is given to the breaking of ours. Your ships under your flag bring to our shores what, in this tremendous moral struggle, is contraband of war. A beer keg acquires no credit because it bears a crest. Whisky is still whisky even when its shares are quoted high and strong on 'Change. The dividends of this mer chandizing are declared in terms of the life blood of the sons

and daughters of our homes and of our schools. To us the price of the enterprise is lawlessness and death.

Headlines and press dispatches like the following are of all too frequent occurrence in our American papers :- British Ship With $450,000 Rum Seized in Chase off Fire Island. The Madeline Adams, a two-masted auxiliary schooner of British registry with liquor, wine and alcohol in her hold valued at $450,000, was captured by the Coast Guard yesterday. The Washington authorities are greatly interested in this case, as it is a direct violation of the liquor treaty with Great Britain."

When first sighted, this ship was within two miles of our shores.

Large.% British Consignment of Liquor to the U.S.A.

" London, April 20th (By the Associated. Press). The Daily Mail asserts that Sir Brodrick Hartwell left England a month ago to superintend delivery to an American syndicate of his seventh and largest shipment of spirits."

We have unmistakable evidence that European liquor dealers are spending liberal sums of money to overthrow and . defeat our laws. The following paragraphs from the official report of one of these associations is significant :—

" The Wines Export Commission was able to state last year that the publicity secured by its efforts through the great journals in the English language edited in the United States had aroused in the American press numerous comments very favourable to our cause and had given a very great impetus to the anti-prohibition literature of the two continents.

The United States is one of the countries where propaganda

work most required circ pection and adroitness.

The coming elections inthe United States will probably be an obeagon'for the Commission to redouble its efforts ; it is awaiting

the return of a special emissary before reaching its definite decision in this respect."

Hands across the sea ! Let us play the game together. In some ways we have tried to help you. Our sons and brothers lie in silence beside yours. Help us ! We venture no word as to method—you will " find a way." In the com- radeship of great peoples let us give sturdy rebuke of what in common conscience we both know is not fair play ; let us stand together for the common action which places character above gain and expresses in very deed the heart-friendship of which no man, no nation can rob us. Citizens of the United States to the citizens of Great Britain and Canada— we ask you to -understand us and help us ! In unbreakable friendship

Yours for social order and international friendship, CITIZENS COMMITTEE OF ONE THOUSAND.

DANIEL A. POLING. FRANK MASON NORTH. PETER J. O'CALLAGHAN. W. R. NICHOLSON, .JR.

Headquarters : FRED B. SMITH, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York. Chairman.

[We sincerely hope that this appeal will have good results. No one wishes this more than we do. The rum-running business is a dirty one, and when it is directed, as it some- times has been in this country, by men of education and position, it is an outrage and a disgrace. We should like, however, to add something to the picture which our cor- respondents draw—not at all to detract from the force of their appeal but merely to complete the picture. Our correspondents write as though those Americans who defy the Prohibition laws are relatively few. But if there were no great demand for imported drink in America there would be no great market for rum-runners. The truth is that, men being what they are, there will always be a rush for the large profit, especially the illicit profit obtained by adventure ; and when a nation is setting up laws which depend to a considerable extent for their effectiveness upon the good will of other nations, the likelihood or the reverse of securing that good will is one of the factors which cannot be omitted from any consideration of the original problem. We say this simply because we are not willing that it should be thought that Englishmen have a larger dose of original sin than other nations. Nor must we forget to say that Englishmen are by no means always behind the enterprises of ships which fly the British flag. We hope and believe that as time passes the American laws will be more widely respected by Americans themselves, and that Englishmen will develop a much deeper sense of the hell; they owe to a nation which has imposed on itself a self-denying ordinance. —En. Spectator.;