ONTARIO'S EPOCHAL ELECTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 20, 25 January 1927, Page 9

ONTARIO'S EPOCHAL ELECTION.

''WETS" AND "DRYS."

A RELENTLESS COMBAT. STATE CONTROL ADOPTED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) VANCOUVER. December 15. The Ontario provincial election which resulted in the triumphant return of the Conservative party to the tune of 75 members in a total of 112, was recognised as an epochal event in the history of Eastern Canada, and, incidentally, wiped out the Ontario Temperance Act, which infused considerable animation into the conduct of the electoral campaign. In fact, the great struggle between "Wets" and "Drys" closed with spurts of superhuman effort never approached in any electoral battle. The pursuit of the campaign on old party grounds was abandoned as futile and the contest culminated in a terrific clash on temperance lines.

From a thousand pulpits on the last Sunday of the campaign there thundered fierce denunciations —terrific indictments —of the onslaughts on the Ontario Temperance Act, otherwise known as the "0.T.A." There was no form of argument unused on either side, no fact, or alleged fact, concealed, 110 motive of hellish design not imputed, until on the day of the polling a million people were embittered and goaded into enmity to such a degree that galling sentiment will remain for years to come. The "Drys" had a thousand clergy fully in relentless combat. Great men, men of strong personality, men of high esteem and notable successes in the business, educational, and religious life of the province were embroiled in the titanic struggle. Sir George Foster was fighting for the Drys against his Conservative friends with a fury born of zeal and conviction. He had with him hundreds of pulpits and Conservative deserters, but among the notable men out for Premier Ferguson and Government control were Sir John Aird, President of the Bank of Commerce, Sir Allen Aylesworth, Professor Baker, University of Toronto; Police Magistrate Burgess, Rev. Father Burke, Hon. and Rev. H. J. Cody, Sir Joseph Flavelle, Sir Thomas White, Dr. Temple, Past President of the Ontario Medical Association; the Archbishop of Algoma, the Archbishop of Huron, and many others.

Emphatic Result. When the votes were coujbted both parties were surprised to discover that Government control had obtained 80 seats out of a Legislature of 112 seats. Inrfb word, Ontario recorded a most emphatic popular verdict against prohibition as represented by the Ontario Temperance Act, the war-time "dry" measure which has been law for ten years. Toronto led the Province with a majority of 82,000 votes for Government control," and the rural district, where the prohibitionists expected the farmers to march as a solid phalanx in defence of the 0.T.A., failed to show temperance sentiment in anything like Jts demonstration in the plebescite vote of 1924. The defeat for Ontario's prohibitionists was attributed to their insistence upon maintaining on the statute books without reasonable amendment, a prohibition act designed to meet a war-time emergency and supported in war days by many electors who, with the return of peace, regained their customary objection to sumptuary laws. Regarded as Mandate. The Ferguson Government does not regard the present victory as a triumph ! for the "wet" element so much as a ! mandate to give Ontario such administration of the liquor laws as will meet the demand for liquor as a beverage without risking a turn to the pre-war I condition of the "open bar.

The Prime Minister, when in Toronto, explained that, under the control legislation to be enacted, territory that was nominally in favour of the sale of liquor in local option days, could appeal to the Commission to authorise a vote to determine whether a Government store should be operated within its confines or not. A three-fifths majority would be necessary to secure a store.