AN article which appeared in the

CANADIAN MONTHLY for Nov

ember, on the 'Taboo of Strong Drink,' has ably presented the case against prohibition. But the reasons for the other side are so many and so strong, that a weaker advocate may venture to hold a brief in its favour. The question is certainly one which will more and more occupy public attention. It is a question that ought, in the interests of all parties, soon to be decided in one way or the other. If the liquor traffic is one that the country should and will permit to continue, then those who are engaged in it have a right to demand that they may know where they are and what they may do, and that they shall not be embarrassed by the feeling that their business may at any day be declared illegal. On the other hand the friends of prohibition must feel that the 'Scott Act' is only tentative and temporary. It is excellent as giving a vantage ground from which, when public opinion is ripe, to move on to a better position, for a good general may seize a position which he does not expect to hold very long, because he knows that from it the very citadel of the

* [In Mr. Crofton's article on "The Taboo of Strong Drink," to which this paper is a reply, a misprint occurs, which creates a false sense, and may, therefore, expose the writer to the imputation of flippancy or presumptuousness. "Is it comprehensible, is it credible," Mr. Crofton wrote (p. 495) "that Jesus should not by one explanatory word have prevented," etc. For the italicised word the compositor substituted "creditable," and we regret that the error should have been overlooked. The correction may not be out of place here.-ED. C. M.]

Local

enemy can be successfully attacked. It is undeniable that a law is inconsistent and illogical, which allows breweries and distilleries to be in full blast, and to pay full taxes, and yet will not permit them to sell their manufactures within, it may be, a hundred miles from where they stand. option is well enough, when applied within certain limits, but such a matter as the liquor trade of perhaps a whole province is too important an affair to be arranged or disarranged piecemeal by a series of local plebiscites; and sooner or later Parliament must decide the question as a whole. But the law is excellent as a temporary measure. It allows experiments to be made on a small scale and under

favourable circumstances. If they succeed they are strong arguments for a general, consistent, logical, prohibitory law; while if prohibition would work all the mischief its opponents imagine, better that it should prove its own injuriousness within limited

areas.

But while experience is solving the question in a practical way, it will not be useless to discuss it theoretically: this paper is offered as a contribution to such discussion. I am quite prepared to agree with a great deal, I might say with most, of what is contained in Mr. Crofton's paper; though in some important instances it appears to me that his analogies do not hold good. But his arguments, however sound in themselves, seem to me quite to fail of their effect, for they are not directed against the valid reason for prohibition.

Is prohibition a question either of morals or religion? Except in so far as morals and religion indirectly enter into the decision of all questions, I think it is not. Let it be granted then that for the law to forbid personal vices, which affect only him who commits them,-that to protect a man against himself'-is meddling legislation,' and therefore inexpedient and hurtful. Let it be granted that 'it is generally wiser in legislation to leave out the consideration of the endless and complex indirect claims of society.' It is also true enough that no moral improvement has been effected in an intemperate man who does not get drunk only because it has been made impossible for him to do so.

Still further, the Christian religion enjoins upon all its members temperance in all things, and therefore, of necessity, temperance in the use of intoxicating liquors. It may be remarked in passing, that temperance in drink is something more than not getting drunk, and that many a man. who has never been drunk in his life may yet hereafter be condemned as intemperate. But let this go. As for total abstinence, speaking with all deference to many earnest temperance workers, I cannot see that it is anywhere commanded; but I believe that every Christian is at perfect liberty to make it the rule of his own life, and would act wisely in so doing if he can. But it is a voluntary act, and he who chooses this way should not condemn one who does not choose it. On the other hand some persons talk very absurdly about the total abstainer 'giving up his Christian liberty.' He does nothing of the kind. He exercises his Christian liberty by choosing to practise a particular act of selfdenial either for his own good or for the good of others. He has a perfect right to do this, and while he should not try to make his acts or his conscience a law to others, he certainly may resent the sneer about the loss of

liberty coming from one who has used his liberty to choose the easier and more pleasant way.

This admission makes it unnecessary to discuss the biblical meaning of the word 'wine.' One would imagine that be not drunk with wine' settles that, as far as the New Testament is concerned, even if any could bring themselves to suppose that Timothy's ' often infirmities' would be much helped by unfermented grape-juice.

If, then, prohibition is based upon neither moral nor religious grounds, upon what does it rest? Is it not purely a question of political expediency? What is a more legitimate consideration for a statesman than whether any particular industry, any particular trade, is on the whole more injurious than beneficial to the country; and if he decide that its ill effects outweigh any possible good effects, why should he not prohibit it? If he sees the resources of the country wasted, its available man-power (if one may coin a term) enormously diminished, pauperism and crime greatly increased by a certain traffic, what possible reason is there why he should not forbid it? If the ill effects were at all confined to those who do wrong, they might be left to enjoy their sorry liberty and have their claim allowed that they must not be 'protected against themselves.' If the ills resulting to others from the intemperate man's conduct, were in any sense indirect, the statesman might decline to meddle with the endless complexities of indirect results. But when he sees immediate consequences injurious to 'person and property' and hurtful to the whole common weal directly resulting from a traffic which has never been free from these consequences, why should he hesitate about putting a stop to it?

Now it may be said this is the usual style of the temperance fanatic. You are asking that, because a minority abuse their liberty, the liberty of all should be curtailed. Let it be granted

that only a minority abuse their liberty. But if it be a fact, that the evil directly resulting to the whole community, from the conduct of this minority, outweighs any possible advantage that the community can gain from unrestricted liberty in this particular, would it not be a wise act-would it not evidently be a general gain-that this liberty should be surrendered by all? It appears to me that the question narrows itself down to this particular issue, or, at least, that this is the first and main issue. If it can be shewn that the facts are as above stated, then prohibition becomes an act of enlightened policy; but if this cannot be proved, then the statesman is perfectly right to relegate the matter back to the teachers of morals and religion with a sharp reprimand to them for having tried to persuade him to do their work.

But, now, how can a proof of this be reached? Chiefly by observation and, to some extent, by induction.

The

What then do we see? It is unnecessary to dwell upon the terrible evils in the train of drink it would be hard to exaggerate them. blighted hopes, the wasted, ruined lives of the victims; the keen agony, or the dull heart-broken despair of mothers, fathers, wives, children; the heartless neglect or the brutal cruelty of the drunkard-these, too common as they are, need no rhetoric to describe their horrors. And it is not the intensity alone of these evils that startles us. How wide-spread they are? What town, what village, what country-side is free from them? How hard, throughout the length and breadth of the land, to find a family to which shame and sorrow have not been brought by the drunkenness of, at least, one of its members.

Now, make the most liberal allowance that any reasonable man can ask, for whatever of comfort and pleasure the moderate use of intoxicating drinks can give to the temperate. Place in one balance all the good that can be

claimed for strong drink; in the other, all its terrible, well-known evils. We may leave the decision, as to which is the heavier, as safely to a non-prohibitionist as to a prohibitionist.

Or put the case in another way. Suppose that prohibition could be fully and completely enforced throughout the whole country. Its opponents will say that this is impossible; but grant it for the sake of argument, and suppose that word were to go out to-morrow that a prohibitory law, certain of enforcement, would at once go into operation. Would not that announcement cause more joy and happiness from one end of the land to the other than almost any other conceivable news? It is difficult-nay, impossible, -to imagine the result. The intense relief the country would experience would be such as one feels who awakes to the consciousness of safety after a horrible nightmare.

Why then should not a statesman give the country this relief? What law of political economy forbids him to banish a trade whose evils so far outweigh all its possible good?

It has been admitted that this is not directly a question of religion. But here the statesman might well appeal to the force of Christian precept. He might, pointing to the mass of evil which he is striving to destroy, ask every Christian man-not to give up his liberty-but to use that liberty for the noble purpose of willingly sacrificing a pleasure (innocent it may be) of his own, for the sake of conferring so great a benefit upon so many others.

But, supposing a prohibitory law expedient, can it be enforced? This is, certainly, an important question. But we are not going to be caught by Mr. Crofton's dilemma. It is necessary to distinguish between two kinds of law. A cursory glance at the statute-book will shew that some things are forbidden because they are wrong, others are wrong only because they are forbidden. Blackstone clearly points out this distinction shortly after he has

given the definition quoted by Mr. Crofton; he says, speaking of things in themselves indifferent: These become either right or wrong, just or unjust, duties or misdemeanors, according as a municipal legislature sees proper, for promoting the welfare of society and more effectually carrying on the purposes of civil life.' As he afterwards says, there are mala in se and mala prohibita. Now it is an exaggerated use of language to speak of positive laws as always constituting crimes.' Murder, arson, and theft are forbidden and punished because they are crimes. But to catch fish out of season, to light fires in the woods at certain times of the year, to allow one's cattle to roam at large, such matters as these, some of greater, some of less importance, are offences against law, yet it would be strained language to speak of any punished for one of them as " I convicted of a crime.' The more highly organized society becomes, the larger becomes the number of 'indifferent' actions which are regulated or forbidden for the public convenience. A good citizen would obey the law about these for conscience' sake, even though he may not see their necessity and may be striving for their repeal; they are not matters of criminal law. It concerns our subject to observe another great difference between natural and positive laws. Difficulty of enforcement can never be an objection to the former; it may be to the latter. If society is to hold together it dare not repeal its laws against murder or theft, even though murderers and thieves should be often unconvicted. Quite otherwise is it with a positive law. If there is no probability of its enforcement, do not pass it; if when passed it proves powerless, repeal it. But it does not by any means follow, that were it passed and enforced, it would 'sap the sanctity and majesty of the law' because conviction under it would not involve the same consequences that a conviction for an un

disputed crime involves. If this is to be a rule, many most useful laws with penalties annexed must be swept from the statute book.

But to return to the question, can prohibition be enforced. Well, it has never yet had a fair trial. No country as a whole has ever enacted prohi bition; particular localities of a country have tried it with a greater or less measure of success. But then liquor was being legally imported into and manufactured in the greater part of that country. What could or could not be done by absolute prohibition (of course the necessary exceptions for medicinal and other purposes are assumed) has never yet been tested. Is not the possible gain worth the risk of the experiment? Prohibitionists believe that it is.

If a prohibitory law should be the genuine expression of the convictions. of the great majority of the people, it could be enforced, otherwise it could not be, and would do more harm than good. There are not wanting symptoms that the tide of public opinion is setting strongly in the direction of prohibition. The tendency of the legislation of the past twenty years (I speak with reference chiefly to the eastern part of the Dominion) has been in the direction of making the license laws more and more stringent. It is not improbable that, in Quebec, the great influence of the hierarchy may be thrown in favour of prohibition. The large majorities obtained in many districts in favour of the Scott Act have their significance, though undoubtedly this significance is diminished by the fact of so many voters having in some districts kept away from the polls. But it is a very strong assumption (I think a very unlikely one) that the greater part of the inert majority' were anti-prohibitionists. Had they had strong feeling about their liberty being taken away they would not have been inert. In some cases (I speak of this from personal knowledge) the very

any