in accordance with the report
of a royal commission, appointed in 1870 by the previous administration
to report on this important system of waterways. A Canada temperance
act--known by the name of Senator Scott, who introduced it when
secretary of state--was passed to allow electors in any county to
exercise what is known as "local option"; that is to say, to decide by
their votes at the polls whether they would permit the sale of
intoxicating liquors within their respective districts. This act was
declared by the judicial committee of the privy council to be
constitutional and was extended in the course of time to very many
counties of the several provinces; but eventually it was found quite
impracticable to enforce the law, and the great majority of those
districts of Ontario and Quebec, which had been carried away for a time
on a great wave of moral reform to adopt the act, decided by an equally
large vote to repeal it. The agitation for the extension of this law
finally merged into a wide-spread movement among the temperance people
of the Dominion for the passage of a prohibitory liquor law by the
parliament of Canada. In 1898 the question was submitted to the electors
of the provinces and territories by the Laurier government. The result
was a majority of only 14,000 votes in favour of prohibition out of a
total vote of 543,049, polled throughout the Dominion. The province of
Quebec declared itself against the measure by an overwhelming vote. The
temperance people then demanded that the Dominion government should take
immediate action in accordance with this vote; but the prime minister
stated emphatically to the house of commons as soon as parliament opened
in March, 1899, "that the voice of the electorate, which has been
pronounced in favour of prohibition--only twenty-three per cent. of the
total electoral vote of the Dominion--is not such as to justify the
government in introducing a prohibitory law." In the premier's opinion
the government would not be justified in following such a course "unless
at least one-half of the electorate declared itself at the polls in its
favour." In the province of Manitoba, where the people have pronounced
themselves conclusively in favour of prohibition, the Macdonald
government are now moving to give effect to the popular wishes and
restrain the liquor traffic so far as it is possible to go under the
provisions of the British North America act of 1867 and the decisions of
the c