w IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I i4l|||^ 112^ 12.2 illU IIM ^ m 12.0 1.8 1.25 : 1 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" — ► % (^ /}. ^^' '^1 w ^^ <% "'> v^ e^ m s /A c2 o 7 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. i45''.0 (716) 87.2-4503 w. (/J Q \ <^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. i^ Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut canadien de microreproductions historiques Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6X6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la m^thode normale de filmage sont indiqu^s ci-dessous. D Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur □ Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur n Covers damaged/ Couverture endommagee □ Pages damaged/ Pages endommag^es n Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaur^e et/ou pellicul^e □ Pages restored and/or laminated/ Pages restaur^es et/ou pelliculees D Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque p"}/ Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ I ! Pages d^color^es, tachet^es ou piqu^es Coloured maps/ Cartes g^ographiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) □ Pages detached/ Pages detachees y Showthrough/ Transparence 1/ n Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur □ Quality of pri Qualite inega nt varies/ gale de I'impression n Bound with other material/ Relie avec d'autres documents D Includes supplementary material/ CotTiprend du materiel supplementaire D □ Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure >erree peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion Iv long de la marge int^rieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajout^es lors dune restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela ^tait possible, ces pages n'ont pas et^ filmees. D n Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Pages whoily or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6t6 filmees ci nouveau de facon i obtenir la meilleure image possible. D Additional comments:/ Commentaires supplementaires; This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est film6 au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X 26X 30X s/ 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: National Library of Canada L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grSce d la g6n6rosit6 de: Bibliothdque nationale du Canada The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. Les images suivantes ont 6x6 reproduites avec le plu*a grand .~oin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettetd de l'exemplaire film6, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimde sont film^s en commen9ant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmds en commengant par la premiS-e page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol — ^ (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole —•^' signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour etre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est filmd d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche S droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 c .< S4-1- G \ THE PROHIBITION PLEBISCITE DISCUSSED BY GOLDWIN SIVIITH. The issue of Prohibition ia now fairly before us, and surely we may discuss it as fellow- citizens having the same end in view, without disparagement to each other's character and motives. The policy of Prohibition is questioned not only by the liquor interest but by a great body of people totally unconnected with that interest, friends of temperance and temperate themselves, who are opposed to prohibition because they sincerely believe that besides trenching on personal liberty it fails of its object and always has done, and is likely always to do more hann than good to public morality. Drunkenness we all abhor and despise. On that subject, opinion which formerly was unsound, ia now perfectly sound. It constitutes a sociai law really more powerful, more certain in its operation, surer in the infliction of its penalties than laws written on the statute book and enforced by the police. The man who is known to be a drunkard is socially and industrially under a ban. Nobody is willing to. employ him : he forfeits his chances of marriage ; the insur- ance office shuns him ; disgrace and poverty are his lot. It used to be far otherwise. Excess in liquor was once almost a part of hospitality. But it is not so now. This very temperance movement is a proof of the strength of feeling on the question which make" )lf felt in all departments and relations of life. When Prohibition has been tried what has been the practical result 7 We have a right to ask this when we are called upon to make what all admit to be a very costly as well as a very critical ex|)eriment. We should have to sacrifice seven millions of revenue. We should have to kill the capital invested in the trade, amounting, it seems, to fifty millions. We should have to throw out of work thousands of people directly or indirectly earning their bread by the business. We should have seriously to injure the growers of barley, cider apples and grapes. If we admitted, as in justice we could hardly fail to admit, a claim for compensati')n, another large item would be added to account of loss. We should have to pay for the additional polic* necessary to guard our immense frontier and to coerce the less settled sections of the population, such as the min'ng adventurers of the West. We might possibly have to coerce Quebec. We should further imperil the interests of our country by proclaiming it to bv* under an ecclesiastical and ascetic rule which many, rightly or wrongly, abhor. Without setting material loss against moral gain, we are entitled to proof, before incurring so great a material loss, that we are sure of the moral gain. Prohibitionists themselves, regardless as they may ho of worldly interests, compared with the principle, would not wish to see the cause of temperance saddled with the memory of a ruinous failure. We all, it may be presumed, prefer liberty and the virtue which is freely formed. Tem- perance in its proper sense is self-restraint, and would cease to exist if abstinence were enforced by law. However, in desperate cases, despcp.te remedies must be applied. But is the case of Canada desperate ? Is Canada a drunken country ? Is it not on the contrary, temperate and increasingly so ? Have not education, religion, and the teachings of medical science been doing their work ? Professor Blaikie thought he was scoring a point for Prohibition by compliment- ing Toronto on the freedom of its streets from drunkenness. But Toronto was not under the Scott Act. There have been false alarms. A temperance lecturer once said that there were 10,000 deaths in Canada annually from alcohol. Ten thousand would be more than half the naale adult deaths in the Dominion. Even three thousand or four thousand deaths from alcohol, the estimates of the Honorable George E. Foster and the Honorable G. W. Ross respectively, muiM be very far beyond the mark. We have tried PJohibition in the form of the Scott Act. County after county adopted the Act ; county after county repealed it by majorities larger than those by which it had been past, finding, as there was a large body of evidence to show, that while the Act stopped social con- viviality, it increased secret indulgence ; that it led to contraband traffic in liquor, to contempt of the law, to perjury, to the evUs of the spy system, to disturbance of neighborly peace and good will. Here was a genuine popular verdict founded on a practical trial of the system. Nor was it really reversed by the subsequent provincial plebiscite in favor of Prohibition carried by a majority in the proportion of nineteen to eleven, while only 68 per oent. of the vote wm mmgHmm polled, and tho balance might safely be set do'm'i m in ^e maia opposed or indiiferent. The enactment and repeal of the Scott Act were i^gislrxion approached by the voter with a full ■ense s, with a few drugs in the window. In Kansas, tho ."^'tate of Governor St. John, the chosen chief of Prohibition, where the most stringent Prohibition has been enacted, the result, according to Dr. Gardner, was that the drug stores were little more than rum shops, and thai their number was astonishing. In one town of four thousand people, fifteen of them were counted on the main street. Leavenworth, with a pojjHlation of 23,000, had a hundred and seventy-five places where liquor was sold. In Kansas City the police e> 'Ilucted in 1882 $45,000 in fines for illegal sale of liquor. There is a general tendency to convert Prohibition, where it prevails^ practically into license by taking the fees under the guise of fines. In Tongawoxie, a small town in Kansas, where there was no saloon before Prohibition, there were three or four afterwards. This is against the theory that Prohi- bition works well in small ^ilaues, though in large cities it works ill. At Topekain Kansas there are no saloons. But there were none v/hen Prohibition was introduced, popular feeling being against them. A proof that it is popular feeling that is strong, rather than prohibitive law. Maine is the banner State of Prohibition. It had been trying the system for v .rly half a eentury, time enough to kill the liquor traffic, if the liquor traffic was to be killed. Yet "Gail Hamilton," who knew the State well, said in The North American Review : "The actual result U that liquor is sold to all who wish tio obtain it, in nearly every town in the State. Enforce- ment of the law seems to have little effect. For the past six years the city of Bangor has prao- tioally enjoyed free rum. In more than one hundred places liquor is sold, and no attempt has been made to enforce the law. In Bath, Lewiston, Augusta, and other cities, no real difficulty is experienced in procuring liquor. In Portland, enforcement of the law has been faithfully attempted, yet the liquor traffic flourishes for all classes from the highest to the lowest. . . . la a journev last summer for hundreds of miles through the cities and through the scattered villages and hamlets of Maine, the almost nniversal testimony was ' you ^et liquor enoask for bad purporses in bad places, but yon eannot get it for goed purposes m good plaoM. " ** What works against Prohibition," the writer added, " is that in the opinioa of mai^ of the most earnest total-abstinence men, the original Maine-Law State, after thirty jwn of FreU- Thu Wtion, is no more a temperance State than it waa before Prohibition was introduoed." II appears that upwards of 1,000 people in the State paid United States retail liquor tax, though Archdeacon Farrar was informod that the trade had been completely driven out of sight. With these accounts the gwneral results and most recent enquiries appear to correspond. Gen. Ncal Dow himself, upbraiding his former party foi its slackness in th« cause, com- plained of the number of low drinkinj; places infesting the cities of Maine. The New York Sun, after inveBtigfation carried on through its correspondent, said : " The actual state of affaini in Maine is perfectly well understood by every Maine man with eyes in his head, and by every observant visitor to Maine. In no part of the world is the spectacle of drunken men reeling along the atreets more common than in the cities and larger towns of Maine. Nowhere in the world is the average quality of the liquor sold so bad ; and consequently so dangerous to the health of the consumer and the peace of the public. The facilities for obtaining liquor vary in different parts of the state, from the c*tiefl where fancy drinks are openly compounded and sold over rosewood bars, to the places where it is dispensed by the swig from flat bottles carried around in the breeches pockets of perambulating dealere. But liquor, good or bad, ctn be bought anywhere." Perjury, the Sun correspondent also stated, as usual, was rife. In the eities of Maine, though the law had been forty-six times amended to sharpen its teeth, liquor, generally of a bad kind, was freely though clandestinely sold. " Pocket peddling " was rife, and pressed the temptation on the young. The city of Bangrir had openly taken itself out of the law, and establishud a liqur)r system of its own. In Portland the city government sold liquor nominalh for medicine, but really also as a beverage, and the agency was a scene of false* hood, jobbery and corruption. The corruption of city officers was an almost inevitable and a serious consequence of the system. Some of those who administered the law in Maine were among the strongest advocates of repeal, and of a return to the license system. They tried to give effect to the law. They fined, they imprisoned, they perhaps ruined one set of liquor dealers, and the only result was that a worse set succeeded. It is said that in Maine the abuse is confined to the mixed population of cities, espesially the seaports, and that in the rural districts the law is successful. It is apparently successful in the rural districts, because there people are temperate of their own accord. It fails where coercion is needed. 1 interviewed Neal Dow, the venerable patriarch of prohibition. It may have been a eaaual mood, but he seemed to me to be disappointed and somewhat embittered. The wife of a man imprisoned for liquor selling had sold some liquor, which was left in the house, to buy bread. Neal Dow spoke of her ott'ence and of tlie punishment which i^he merited in very extreme terms. Moral crusades have done much for us. But moral crus ders are apt in their zeal to •verstep the limits of justice. The Sc>>tt Act set up arbitrary tribunals, forcei a man to incriminate himself, compelled husband and wife to break the marriage vow by testifying against each other. The practice of forcing the consciences of candidates at elections is not consistient witli public morality, or with true loyalty to the commonwealth, whose general interests it disregards. Traders in liquor are treated as assassins, and put out of the paL of justice, though they nave been specially recognized by the state, which has received their license fees. Some years ago seventy or eighty taverns were suddenly closed in Toronto. The keepers of the taverns could not starve. They sold liquor secretly, and the result was an unusually drunl jn Christmas. The tavern door, when you have closed it by law, ceases to tempt ; but the illegal liquor seller may be a more active tempter. In all these cases the law, no doubt, has its friends. It could not otherwise have bean passed, and its friends naturally give a favorable account of its operation. Much evidence of tkat kind was given to the Camtdian Commissioners, and has formed the basis of a minority report. But, making the fairest allowance for this, and supposing tha evidence to bo balanced, it is surely impostible to say that in any case there is such practical proof of the success of prohibition as would warrant us in encountering all the cost and risks of a sweeping measure for the whole Dominion. Improvement which was really spontaneous may sometime! have been credited to law. Evidence of the evils of drunkenness, though largely given, is not to the point. Tlie evils of drunkenness nobody disputes. The question is only as to the practicability and effioaoy oi the remedy now proposed. Imposing statistics are broujs;ht to prove a connection between drinking and crime ; and it is inTerred that if you stop drinking, crime will cease. Is there not a falacy here I In moat cases, is it drinkin^; that is the parent of crime, or is it not rather depravity of nature, inherited or induced by circumstances, that is the parent of both 7 Besides, criminals have learned the trick of pleading drink as the origin and excuse of their crime*. There ia n" absence of crime in Turkey, where the Koran prohibits drink, or in Spain, which ia noted for temperance. We Mr* also told that drunkenness is the great aonrca of poverty. That dnmkemaeeB, when H ■^ >!*•-# sxista, IB a Hource of poverty cannot be questioned. But the Rouroes •! poverty are countlau including fluctuations of industry, decline in the value of products, and ot her economical causes, as well as personal infirmities, disease, and mere idleness and thriftlessness, which are often found apart from addiction to drink. The poverty of the millions in Uindoostan has not its source in drink. That the moderate use of liquor must lead to excess is an assumption at variance with facts. fCnglish gentlemen use wine ddiiy, and abhor drunkenness. Millions and tens of millions in other countries do the same. In Spain, we are told, everybody drinks a little wine, yet a drunken man is almost a prodigy, Crdker, in his "Travels in Spain," says, "The habitual temperance of these people is really astonishing ; I never saw a Spaniard drink a second glass of wine." Another English tourist says : "In all our wanderings through town and country, along the highways and byways of the land from Bayonne co Gibraltar, we never saw more than four men who were the least intoxicated." Mr. Bryant, the American author, has confirmed this account. Nothing can be better proved than that to carry into effect laws of this kind in a free country you must have the conscience of the people thoroughly and actively with you Men may vote for Prohibition from general hatred of intemperance ; perhaps under ministerial or personal influence ; but will their conviction be strong enough to make them join heartily in giving effect to the law? They would do their best to bring a murderer or a thief to justice. Will they do their best to throw into jail and ruin a neighbor otherwise harmless, perhaps a friend or acquaintance, for selling or drinking a glass of whiskey or ale ? Will they not be apt, even if they are abstainers themselves, rather to help him to get off ? The people do wrong in breaking or evading the law ; but the legislator does wrong in making a law which the people are sure to break. No fair-minded prohibitionist can think that the use of fermented liquors is so clearly immoral that in suppressing it the consciences of all men will be with you. Christ undoubtedly used wino ; His apostles used it ; He made it an element of His most sacred ordinance forever. An overwhelming majority of mankind still use fermented liquors. The taste is co-extensive and co-eval with humanity. In the earlier mythologies there are gods o! wine. 1 he g; eat Pro- hibitionist, Archdeacon Farrar, most positively disclaims the belief that the moderate use of liquor is criminal. Mr. Gladstone is known to have used wine. Nor can you reasonably say that all fermented liquor is poison when you see moderate drinkers living to a hundred, and find moderate use still perscribod by eminent physiciani. You may think, possibly with a reason, that whisky or beer is unwholesome ; ■ houuh the con- stitutions of men may differ in that respect. But merely an opinion that an article of diet is unwholesome, especially when the opinion is so far from being universal, is not a sufficient ground for the interference of the law. Behind this agitation for the prohibition of drink begins to loom an agitation for the prohibition of tobacco. If the experts of medical science would pronounce unanimously, or with any approiich to unanimity, that the moderate use of liquor necebsarily generated disease and shortened life, the effect would presently be seen. Those who sincerely believe that such laws are a tyrannical misuse of political power, in resisting as far as they lawfully could, the application of the measure, would ba acting no less conscientiously than those who were striving to put it in force. Prohibition discriminates against the lighter drinks, such as wine, beer and cider, and in favor of whisky, because the bulk of whisky being less, it is more easily smuggled, while its clandestine manufacture is more easily concealed. Besides there are other intoxicants, such as opium and chloral, the use of which would be likely to increase when liquor was withdrawn. Legal prohibition kills voluntary efforts such as that of Bands of Hope or the Good Temp- lars, which have ilone so much to diminish drinking. It is believed that this effect is already felt in advance, and that it accounts for a slight increase of inebriety in some places. Nor, if coercion fails, will organization for voluntary effort be easily revived. Everybody admits that the liquor trade has its special dangers, and stands in special need of legislative supervision and control. These may be applied to any extent and in any form which may seem expedient so long as the trade is in recognized and responsible hands. When th« trade becomea contraband all regulation is practically at an end. 7840X1 1 GOLDWIN SMITH, Former Frtsident of ih* Liberal Ttmperance Union. 29 "■■•pii»ip""