• U.S.

National Affairs: A Nice Point

2 minute read
TIME

The triangle as a source of drama is not exhausted. A recent variation is that in which Governor General Wood of the Phillippines, the War Department (his superior) and the Department of State are concerned. It involved a nice point.

The U. S. Constitution, in that section of it known as the 18th Amendment, forbids the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors in “the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” This includes the Philippines. The Volstead Act, which defines intoxicating liquors and under which alone can violators of the Amendment be persecuted and sent to jail, does not apply to the Philippines. It does not apply to the Philippines because they are not specifically included in the Act; and the law (the “organic law” or Constitution), given by Congress to the Philippines when they were acquired by the U. S., provided that no subsequent act of Congress should apply to the Philippines unless specific mention was made of the fact.

Hence, there is legal prohibition in the Philippines by provision of the Constitution, but no law for enforcing such prohibition; and hence, there is no actual prohibition in the Philippines.

However, for some time the State Department, by and with the advice of the Department of Justice, has been refusing through its consuls to certify invoices for liquor shipments to the Islands. Liquor was shipped anyhow—and a small fine paid at the port of debarkation. In June of last year, the State Department ordered its consuls to refuse bills of health to vessels leaving for the Philippines with liquor cargoes.

It was over this question that the disagreement arose. A consul at Hongkong refused a bill of health to a liquor-bearing ship. Governor General Wood protested, and finally asked the War Department to bid the State Department modify its instructions to consuls, inasmuch as the Volstead Act did not apply to the Philippines. The State Department refused on the ground that its instructions were based on the Constitution.

Now the Philippine knot awaits the unraveling of the courts—or the Alexandrine stroke of Congress.

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