service of hypocrisy, bigotry, and fanaticism. The whole line of argumentation adopted by the Globe during the Dunkin contest in Toronto, and since, is diametrically opposite to that which it took with regard to the prohibitory clauses of the Ontario Medical Act of 1874. And yet the principle involved in the two Acts is precisely the same. According to the Globe a man may call in a charlatan to quack him, or may quack himself, with dangerous drugs like laudanum or chloroform to stop a toothache, but he may not buy a mouthful of sherry and bitters to give him an appetite for his dinner, or a glass of ale to straighten him up after a hard day's work, or "a little wine for his stomach's sake.' He may not take a glass of whiskey and water at night to help him to sleep comfortably and naturally, but he may take a dose of a terribly insidious drug like chloral to make him sleep unnaturally. Traffic in opium is all right; traffic in alcohol is all wrong. Free trade in medicine is an unspeakable blessing; free trade in beer is a frightful evil! But why complain? Who expects logical consistency or honesty from a party organ?

"persuasion" of a fanatical and tyrannical majority. After a struggle of some seven hundred years the Anglo-Saxon race has pretty well got rid of the despotism of kings and aristocracies. The despotism now to be dreaded is the despotism of majorities. Let but that chain be fastened round the neck of a miserable minority and their struggles will only serve to tighten it more effectually.

If

In reply to Mr. Anglin's contention that there can be no greater tyranny conceiv able than dictating to a man what he shall eat and drink, Mr. Mackenzie rejoined with the unworthy quibble that the Act contained nothing about eating and drinking. the Premier meant to imply that it is not the object of the Act to interfere with a man's right to drink what he likes, the plea is false, both technically and morally. It is false technically, because the well-settled rule of law is, that every man must be taken to intend the necessary consequences of his own acts; and, as a necessary consequence of preventing the sale of liquor will be to prevent its being drunk, the Legislature must be taken to intend that consequence. The plea is false morally, because, as a matter of fact, the real object of the bill is to stop drinking; the stopping of the sale is only a means to that end. The mischief which the Bill is designed to prevent is not the buying and selling of liquor, but the drinking it, with the attendant drunkenness. Buying and selling alcohol does not make people drunk. The mere traffic might conceivably go on till the crack of doom, with no more injury to the community than the traffic in coal oil. Were it not that temperance orators are for ever obscuring the true facts of the question with their windy rhetoric, it would be humiliating to point out truisms so self-evident as these.*

Oh, but, says our Prohibition advocate, with that charming ingenuousness which one so often finds in Prohibition logic, we do not wish to exert tyranny, we only want to persuade,―to act on a "basis of mutual agreement, not arbitrary imposition."* Just so! Persuade by passing a law which compels! We have heard of this sort of persuasion before. The wretched member of a minority, who, a few hundred years back, dared to think for himself on religious subjects, was handed over by the majority to the tender mercies of the Inquisitor, to be " persuaded" by the rack and the thumbscrew; and in these days one occasionally hears a Colt's revolver spoken of as a "persuader." As ingenuous Prohibitionist logicians are fond of quoting St. Paul in this connection, it may be well to remind them that the great Apostle said that, "If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh "; and that he did not say, "If meat make your brother to offend, I will compel you to eat no flesh." St. Paul was a man of common-sense, and knew well that the sole merit of abstinence under such circumstances was in its being voluntary. And so I say, the Lord preserve me from the

* CANADIAN MONTHLY, October, 1877, p. 370.

With regard to the second charge against the Temperance Act, I may mention that I have already contended in the pages of this

"Under the name of preventing intemperance, the people of one English colony, and of nearly half the United States, have been interdicted by law from for medical purposes: for prohibition of their sale is making any use whatever of fermented drinks, except in fact, as it is intended to be, prohibition of their use.

The infringement complained of is not on the liberty of the seller, but on that of the buyer and him to drink wine, as purposely make it impossible consumer; since the State might just as well forbid for him to obtain it."-MILL, Essay on Liberty, People's Ed., pp. 52-3.

Magazine that the Act is unjust and onesided in punishing the seller of liquor and letting the buyer go free.* A writer in the next number of the Magazine, answering this contention, said that it would be "news" that it "punishes anybody." He was apparently unaware that under the old Act a man was liable to a penalty of fifty dollars for selling a glass of beer or whiskey, and to three months' imprisonment in default of payment. Under the new Act, the seller is liable to a penalty of fifty dollars for the first offence, one hundred dollars for the second, and to imprisonment for two months for the third and every subsequent offence. Is that punishment? On the other hand, the man who joins in breaking the law by buying the glass of beer or whiskey neither was nor is punished. If anyone thinks that such legislation is not monstrously one-sided and utterly subversive of the foundations of public morality, will he be good enough to point out a single statute (other than liquorlaws) now in force in Canada, by which, of two persons who join in an illegal act, one is punished, and the other and more guilty is allowed to go free? I repeat, more guilty. The experience of Toronto, at least, in the matter of the Saturday night liquor law, shows that it is invariably the buyer who brings about a breach of the law. He makes the first move towards the illegal act; he seeks out the liquor-seller, offers him money to supply him with what he wants, and if, as is usually the case, the seller manifests reluctance, importunes him till he succeeds or gets a decisive negative. These are the actual facts as I can testify from personal ob servation. And there is no reason to suppose that the experience in other places is different from that in Toronto. The picture of the liquor-seller as a "murderer," a "vampire" sucking the life-blood out of human hearts, an "agent of Satan" luring on men to their temporal and eternal ruin, is an atrocious and foully-libellous caricature, a hideous nightmare which has no existence outside the heated imaginations of fanatics who do not know what they are talking about. To judge from the language of some of these people, one would fancy that liquorsellers stood at the doors of their saloons, dragged passers-by in by the hair of the

* CANADIAN MONTHLY, October, 1877, p. 420. + Ibid, November, 1877, p. 525..

head, and with the help of their "myrmidons," poured raw whiskey or methylated alcohol down the throats of their victims by main force, and then rifled their pockets. If teetotal agitators wish reasonable men to listen to them they will have to stop this sort of raving. A rum-seller who sells five gallons of rum to a man who goes home and drinks himself to death, is no more responsible for the result than is a rope-seller who sells a rope to a man who goes home and hangs himself. Nor is the "liquor-traffic," or the "rope-traffic," responsible in either case. It is mere cowardice to seek to shift the sin of the drunkard on to the shoulders of the liquor-seller, or on to those of some mythical abstraction called "The Liquor Traffic." But let us give the drunkard his due. These contemptible devices are none of his contriving. They have been invented for him by the sentimentalists who take upon themselves to speak in his behalf. The drunkard himself puts the guilt where it of right belongs-on his own shoulders, where also must rest whatever sins he is guilty of towards his wife and children. I am not defending the sale of liquor to a man already drunk, or the giving of liquor for the express purpose of making a man drunk. Those who do such things are fit objects of legislation and punishment. Such, however, are extremely rare, the almost universal rule being to refuse liquor to a man who is seen to be drunk. The drinking which does the mischief is that which goes on in private houses. Out of about four hundred liquor licenses granted in Toronto, only about ten or a dozen are saloon licenses. It is utterly false, too, to say that the chief source of a liquor-seller's gains is "the depraved appetites of poor wretches whose manhood, if not already gone, is oozing out with every glass."* The vast proportion of the liquor sold is to meet the demands of moderate drinkers-of men and women who never get drunk in their lives. Humanity is not the bestial herd of swine which prohibitionist libellers would make it out to be.

This question of responsibility, once started, would lead us a long way,—so far, indeed, that it would be hard to know where to stop. It may suit Prohibitionists to begin and end with the liquor-seller, because he happens to be the final term of a long se

ries. It is time, however, that this cowardly attempt to make a scapegoat of one particular class was shown up in its true colours. If a saloon-keeper is a murderer because he sells liquor by the glass, what shall we say of the wholesale grocer and wine merchant, who sell it by the hogshead? What shall we say of the brewer and distiller, who manufacture and sell it by the thousand hogsheads; what of the princely grain merchant and speculator "on change," who, where the saloonkeeper makes his hundreds, make their thousands a year by speculating in barley and other grain used for the manufacture of alcohol; what of the farmers, who grow the barley and other grain, knowing for what purpose it is to be used; what of the maltster, the hop-grower, the vine-grower? If the saloon-keeper is a murderer by retail, are not these people murderers by wholesale? or is the responsibility passed on from one to the other till the whole burden is finally laid on the shoulders of the retailer, as a sort of vicarious sacrifice or substitute for the rest?

A brief apologue is in point here, as affording some sort of clue to the amount of genuine honesty at the bottom of this Prohibition movement. In Frontenac, the county of which Kingston is the capital, the Dunkin Act was passed some few years ago, its successful passage being mainly due to the votes of the farmers. The principal crop grown in the county is barley, the great bulk of which is sent over to the States, for the purpose, as these farmers well know, of being manufactured into alcoholic "poison." Would it not be well if some of our Prohibition writers or orators were to turn their attention in this direction? Surely there is an opening here for a little rhetoric. One promising subject, at least, could be dilated on,—the virtue of Consistency, and what a beautiful thing it is. Something might be said, too, about "sordid greed," and "trafficking in the woes and sorrows of mankind." Perhaps, however, it is thought that, in this particular case, the desire to turn an honest penny is a nobler attribute of humanity than even honesty or consistency.

There is a family likeness among fanatics of every age. Witch-burners and Inquisitors lived and died in the odour of sanctity; and one of the most conspicuous marks of the Prohibitionists of to-day is the assumption of exalted virtue. God is on their side, and the Devil on that of those who differ from

them. This characteristic Pharisaism is aptly dealt with by the Saturday Review, in an article on the "Absolute Suppression of Trade in Drink." It says:

"The invasion of private liberty which would be involved in such a system would be a heavy price to pay, even for increased sobriety; but the decisive argument against it is that it is impracticable. Indeed, there tempt being made to give effect to this principle has is reason to believe that the mere prospect of an atalready done a great deal of mischief. We do not mean to dispute the assertion that the number of abstainers is steadily increasing, or that this is, in ittotalers, which they are perfectly free to adopt, that self, a good thing. It is not the practice of the teeis injurious, but the spirit of self-righteous and aggressive intolerance which they are apt to assume. Teetotalism is essentially, of course, a confession of personal weakness, yet there is no class which is so intensely conceited as to its moral superiority over the rest of the community. There can be no doubt that what gives an impulse to this movement is in a large degree the gratification which the members derive from the conviction that they are entitled to set themselves up as an example to the world, and to enforce on others compliance with their rules. It is impossible to read the speeches and articles in favour of this view without being struck by the tone of bitter and arrogant dogmatism which invariably perharm, because it rouses a natural instinct of resentment and defiance, and rallies all those who, without any sympathy with drunkenness, are not disposed to submit to a system of administrative despotism, in opposition to the teetotal cause. Experience has shown that in such a case it is impossible to enforce a sweeping change by coercive measures which are contrary to the general temperament and habits of the population, and that some gentler and more conciliatory method must be tried.

vades them. And it is this which does so much

Moreover, after all, this claim to superior virtue is not always well founded. Most of the total abstainers with whom I am acquainted are hard smokers. Like a good many other moral reformers, they

"Compound for sins they are inclined to, By damning those they have no mind to." These people would, I fancy, be somewhat astonished if it were proposed that the measure which they mete to others should be measured to them again, if, for instance, non-smokers were to agitate for the passage of an Act to prohibit the sale of tobacco in any form. And yet I have just as much right to stop a man from smoking a cigar, as he has to prevent me from drinking a glass of beer; or rather, there is just as little right to do one as the other.

A few words remain to be said respecting the third objection to the Act,—that it legalises robbery. In places where the Dun

kin Act is not in force, liquor-selling under license is legal; as soon as the new Act comes into effect anywhere, the traffic becomes illegal; and the contention is, that when a legislature makes any traffic illegal which before was legal, it is bound by every principle of equity and honesty between man and man, to give compensation to all who inevitably, and without fault of their own, suffer loss in consequence. It is by no means contended that "the liquor-seller alone is to be protected "* in this way. The principle is of universal application, and has been almost universally acted on in modern times, except in the liquor-laws of Canada and the United States. The exceptions only prove the rule. If legislative iniquities have been perpetrated in the past, that is no rea son why they should be perpetrated now. One strong ground for protesting against the Temperance Act is, that it shall not be quoted as a precedent in justification of similar iniquities in the future. The contention that the Act is guilty of spoliation, because, from the first section to the last, it contains no word as to compensation to those whose property it depreciates in value, and whose means of livelihood it takes away, has been called "a gem of logic," and has been replied to in this fashion: "So much property is engaged in the liquor-traffic, so many people are dependent upon it. All this property is to be destroyed, all these people are to be robbed! How? By legislation? Is this legislation fair and above board? Yes. Is due notice given? Yes. Is it demanded by the majority? Yes, else it cannot be had. Where then is the robbery?" The feeble glimmer of the solitary gem is quite eclipsed. Here we have a whole cluster of gems. Their overpowering brilliancy will be made evident by repeating the questions with a different application, substituting the Act for the burning of Heretics in place of the Temperance Act: "So many people engaged in worshipping God in their own way, so many people dependent as they believe for their eternal life upon the right to do so. This right to be destroyed, all these people to be robbed of their lives? all these people to be robbed of their lives?

*This objection was taken by a writer in this Magazine for November, 1877, p. 526.

+ CANADIAN MONTHLY, November, 1877, p.

How? By legislation? Is this legislation fair and above board? Yes. Is due notice given? Yes. Is it demanded by the majority? Yes, else it cannot be had. Where, then, is the murder?" Yes, where? Is it not plain that we have here merely the old "might is right" argument in a new dress? "Where then is the robbery?" The writer who gave the finishing polish to his cluster of jewels with that question, in seeking to bolster up his argument by instances from history, dropped the word "slaveholders."* The allusion was an unfortunate one. For myself, I say, with Gratiano,

"I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word,”

and will shew my gratitude by recalling a

fact or two which Prohibitionists find it convenient to forget or ignore. When slavery, which up to 1833 had been legal in Jamaica and other British Colonies, was made illegal, the slaveholders were compensated at a cost of £20,000,000 sterling. Moreover, had slavery in the Southern States been abolished but that similar compensation would have in time of peace, there can be no question been made there. The rights of the slaveholders were annulled by the war; though, notwithstanding that fact, States which should re-enter the Union, and slave-masters

who should return to their allegiance, before the 1st of January, 1863, were specially excepted from Lincoln's abolition proclamation of the 22nd September, 1862. Are grocers and hotel-keepers less entitled to justice than slave-drivers? Is selling a glass of beer a more atrocious act than selling a human being; or the traffic in drink

worse than the traffic in human flesh and blood? But, in truth, the question of better The sole consideration which a legislature or worse has nothing to do with the matter. has any right to look at in dealing with the question of compensation or no compensation when a certain traffic is suppressed, is, not whether the traffic has been moral or immoral, but whether it has been legal. If it has, its morality is conclusively assumed as against the legislature which permitted it. Of course, no one pretends that a man who had been selling liquor without a licensethat is, illegally-would be entitled to compensation on the passage of a Dunkin Act,

⚫ CANADIAN MONTHLY, November, 1877, p. 525