STATE CONTROL IN CANADA

Evening Star, Issue 19634, 13 August 1927, Page 22

STATE CONTROL IN CANADA

THE GOSPEL OF MODERATION AHTI-PROHIBITIOH VICTORY A country living under Prohibition laws might fittingly bo described as a dry State entirely surrounded by paradoxes (writes tho Canadian correspondent of the Loudon ‘Times’). There is the paradox in tho fact of a section of the community imposing its scruples on the whole; the paradox of tho man who can afford his “ bootlegged ” liquor being able to break a law that the poor man is obliged to respect; the paradox of private drinking in public places, and a whole host of others. It is, then, only adding one more paradox to the list to say that the tide of Prohibition which swept across the nine provinces of Canada during the war years has now receded and_ left eight out of the nine “ wet, ” again. They have, however, “gone wet” with a difference. The system of Government control (which is the guiding principle throughout) varies between province and province—whether it be the convenient form of sale through Government stores, as in Quebec, or the more complicated practice of private delivery. as in Manitoba. But there is not a place in the dominion that would countenance a return to tho old days of the drinking saloon and the bar, and to that extent tho self-denying ordinances of tho war years have left their mark. It would ho unprofitable at this stage to discuss the motives and reopen the controversies that led to the establishment of Prohibition in Canada. The real interest of the question lies in the history of its repeal. A comparison with the state of affairs across' the border is inevitable, and the first point to note is that under tho Constitution the Provinces of Canada have been able to take tho individual action denied to the separate States. REASONS FOB. REPEAL. In Canada the provinces enjoy the right of individual action, and a series of elections and plebiscites, first in one province and then in another, has seen Prohibition go overboard from coast to coast until Nova Scotia remains as the last stronghold of tho movement. Those decisions were made, not by Government enactment, but by the free votes of tho majority of tho people. As might be expected of a wine-drinking community—which, like all wine-drink-ing communities, draws a sharp line between drinking and drunkenness—the people of Quebec were the first to repeal what they regarded as a that was only justified by the exigencies of the war. British Columbia and the middle west followed, and the victory of the anti-Prohibitionists reached its climax with the repeal of the Temperance Act in Ontario iu May of this year. What, then, were the reasons which prompted this return to tho freedom of the old order? First and foremost, perhaps, was the extreme difficulty of enforcing the Prohibition Acts. As a well-informed writer expresses it; There is a powerful and organised interest for ever opposed to such legislation. Thera are the great profits to be got from illicit trading, and a demand for liquor which seems never to he satisfied. There is tho fact that so many people will not regard the consumption of liquor as a moral offence and will not assist in tho conviction or punishment of those who break laws which they think should never have been enacted. There is also the influential element in every community, sincere and honest, well

living, and well doing, i-iw respecting and Jaw observing, which regards all sumptuary legislation as. an interference with personal freedom, coercive in spirit and tyrannical in practice, and which denies the-right of the State or the church to enact and enforce prohibitory social statutes. RETURN TO OLD ORDER. All this might be implemented. There were the weariness and the disgust with the tiresome, habits that always go -with secret drinking—the inevitable bottle of boot-legged whisky in the hotel bedroom; the furtive hip flask; the young people -who drink because it is the smart thing to do; the devastating boredoin of the conversation that begins with advice where, when, and from whom to get “ hooch ” and ends wuth the latest sample of alleged humor that has alcohol as its flavor. There was the serious alarm at lie illness and the crime that were alike attributable to tho consumption of the largest possible ration of bad alcohol in tho shortest possible time. Above all, however, there was the quiet confidence that the essential decency and tho sobriety of the Canadian people ivould prevent any abuse of the freedom enjoyed for generation after generation. Tho traveller who journeys from coast to coast across the dominion can hear first-hand evidence as to tho justification of this belief. It is rarp indeed to see a drunken man in the streets; rarer still to see a drunken man of the working-class type. _ If the younger generation are more inclined to the cocktail habit than their cousins in the old country, they balance the ledger by very rarely drinking with their meals. In Edmonton alone the number of crimes directly attributable to liquor fell from an annual average of 915 in tho three years immediately preceding the repeal of Prohibition laws to 527 in 1925. A mischievous influence has been removed from politics. Nobody wants the saloon back again, but nobody wants its equally sordid alternatives. In short, it seems as though Canada had discovered the happy mean that has moderation rather than Prohibition os its aim and keeps a nation disciplined without putting it in irons.