BEATING THE EXCISE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 47, Issue 2667, 8 September 1937, Page 2

BEATING THE EXCISE

LIQUOR RACKETEERING

BIG CANADIAN PROBLEM.

Canada has gradually become a new sanctuary for American liquor racketeers who were deposed when prohibition was repealed. The Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Major-General Sir James Macßrien), says it is the most serious problem which confronts his force. “Since the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment,” he says in his annual report, “and the establishment of the United States Alcohol Tax Enforcement Unit, -whose members have been vigorous in eradicating illicit liquor manufacture in the vicinity of the border, seizures (in Canada) of large commercial stills tend to show that many of the operators, with American financial interests behind them, are endeavouring to establish themselves in Canada.”

When legal liquor flowed in the United- States after the failure of the “noble experiment,” it paid heavy tribute in excise, which naturally led to a revival of the illicit manufacture that has prospered since 1920. When the new federal department caused the rum barons considerable loss, in funds and liberty, they moved across the border. It proved to be a profitable step, from many angles. Dominion excise taxes are high, and the price of liquor is correspondingly high, which means a prompt market for the bootlegger. The Canadian preventive force is inadequate to cope with the traffic. In Detroit alone there are more members of the new federal unit than there are mounted police in the whole of Ontario.

Unlimited funds at the disposal of the American racketeers make it possible to spend large sums in camouflaging their plants. The Mounties recently raided a country mansion twenty miles from Toronto. They were met at the door by a whitejacketed butler and bowed into a spacious reception room, where they were presently joined by the tenant of the house. He readily admitted the presence of a still on the premises. He had been persuaded, on a promise of liberal rent, to sublet several rooms to two foreigners. He was well and favourably known to his neighbours, whom he entertained. One of them was curious at the comprehensive system of plumbing, and the presence of two water lines. That led to the seizure of the plant.

The liquor bosses never hppear on the premises, and cannot be overtaken. Operators who are captured are employees. Their fines are promptly paid, and they receive a handsome bonus for the three months spent in orison.

“Those border lice!” remarked a Mountie officer contemptuously. “They’ll always find a racket. They haven’t forgotten the big money they made during Prohibition, and they’re coming back into the game. - They won’t have much trouble in getting togethei' the old rum-running gangs on both sides of the border, and the underworld selling organisations still exist.”