Another important matter bearing-upon this subject is that the new Premier, the Hon. Mackenzie King, in answer to a deputation from the Dominion Alliance demanding the introduction of legislation making prohibition apply to the whole of Canada, said: "T do not believe in prohibition in anything, but I do believe in temperance in everything." He also took the stand that it would be wise before any further requests were made for legislation to wait and see what the results of prohibition were in those Canadian Provinces which had adopted it, and in the United States, and he doubted if trying to make all the Provinces dry would tend to the unity of the country. Good judges say that it certainly would not, as Quebec would never consent to prohibition.
There is a third matter which must be mentioned and these three should go a long way to explain why when writing of Canada it is impossible to get away from prohibition. The Commissioners of Canada, who have to administer the Temperance Act, have recently urged municipalities in the Province to remit certain taxation on hotels, so that their proprietors should have more money to spend in making their ~Jaces more attractive to tourists, and particularly the hundreds of thousands of automobilists who come from the United States.
Since prohibition was forced on this Province the hotels have had hard times to get along and this has not increased their attractiveness. It has been the reverse in the Provinces of Quebec and British Columbia, where there is government control of liquor. Travel is going to them, both from the other Provinces and the United States. But further than that, Americans are purchasing property and establishing industries and branch industries in them in preference to other Provinces. Thus it can be seen that Prohibition is affecting the material prosperity of the individual Provinces, why it forms such an everlasting question, and why there is more likelihood of government control taking the place of Prohibition in the dry Provinces in the course of time.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.