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Story: Liquor laws

Pro-continuance poster, 1920s

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Pro-continuance poster, 1920s

Members of the liquor trade met temperance propaganda with their own. This poster from the 1920s shows a New Zealand soldier booting Uncle Sam, the personification of the United States of America, across the Pacific Ocean back to his homeland. The United States adopted prohibition in 1919 but this did not solve liquor-related social problems and in fact caused new problems, such as crime and corruption related to illegal liquor. The poster urges New Zealand not to follow the same path.

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Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: Eph-D-ALCOHOL-Continuance-1920s-01

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Paul Christoffel, Liquor laws – The temperance influence, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/ephemera/37655/pro-continuance-poster-1920s (accessed 3 June 2026).

Story by Paul Christoffel, published 14 November 2012, updated 1 December 2014.