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Toronto, March 31--- Legislature ended at two o'clock Friday morning when
the Ferguson 4.4 per cent beer bill was carried on second reading by a vote
of 70 to 24, four government member bolting and four Opposition member voting
with the administration.
Late at night W. E. Raney, after a three-hour harangue, in which will be
attacked as "pseudo scientists" all savants who have declared
that 4.4 per cent beer is not intoxicating, moved an amendment: "That
the bill be referred back to a sub-committee of the House to be named by
the Prime Minister, with instructions to inquire and report to this House
whether a liquor of four decimal four per cent alcohol by volume is an intoxicating
liquor."
The amendment was lost on a vote of 74 to 20.
Record of Bolters
Opposition members voting with the Government against the Raney amendment,
were Z. Mageau(Lib., Sturgeon Falls), E. Prouix (Lib., Prescott), E. Telier
(Lib., North Essex).
No Government members voted for the Raney amendment directly.
Government supporters voting against the bill on the main vote were: A.
Sweet, Dundas; J. Belford, R. J. Patterson, S. Victoria and H. A. Acres,
Carlton.
Opposition members voting with the government directly for the bill were
Prouix, Pinard, Telier (Liberal), and Callon (Labor).
The pairs were: Thompson, Biggs, Armstrong, Carty, and Garden, Bowman.
Thirteen Orators
The all night session was noticeable for the several exchanges between the
present and former Attorney-General, when the latter attacked Mr. Nickel's
scientific authorities.
The Government argument was in brief that the new beer is not intoxicating
and that by so ammending the O. T. A. true temperance issues are being promoted.
The opposition argued that the amendment is the first breach in the law,
whose widening will later produce a torrent, and that the Conservative party
will no longer be able to boast of being the only temperance party in the
province. Political consideration, or course, cropped out very frequently
during the discussion. and most of the speakers, after their leaders had
spoken, showed that they were more interested in their ridings that in either
the chemical of gastronomical qualities of the new beer. Thirteen members
spoke during the debate.
"Nickel Beer"
During the early morning discussion Hon. W. F. Nickle practically announced
that the new beer would sell for five cents a glass. "At forty cents
a gallon," he said, "and adding a reasonable Government tax the
retailer will still have a profit if one hundred per cent if selling the
beer a five cents a glass."
Mr. Nickel's Points
The chief points in Mr. Nickel's speech were that if a law is not provided
that has public sentiment behind it, Ontario will no better off than the
United States, and he quoted the late Theodore Roosevelt as having said
that if a law is not enforceable, the state is approaching a condition of
anarchy. He held that the amendments as proposed are required for two reasons,
arising from the two types of amendments offered. In the first instance
bootleggers in hard liquor are successfully competing against the distilleries
because of the exorbitant excise duties and the Federal Government imposes
sales tax which upon the province respecting liquors sold in the dispensaries.
The bootlegger escape these imposts. It is therefore imperative to check
bootlegging activity to have laws which will put a bootlegger in jail for
the first offence, as fines are of no avail against a prosperous trader.
In the second place people who will be satisfied with a palatable drink
of beer, which is non-intoxicating, will not continue to seek illicit beverages,
often poisonous, and more frequently than not, sold in forged bottles with
forged labels and capsules.
Ottawa's Fault
He declared at various points during his argument that the responsibility
for the great and growing bootleg trade in Ontario is primarily owing to
Ottawa's laxity. Ottawa practically legalizes export of liquor to the U.S.
for the sake of excise revenue of ten dollars per gallon, and refuses to
lower taxation which which makes reduction of dispensary prices prohibitive.
Mr. Nickel also criticizes the Globe and other prohibitionist papers and
organizations for being more interested in temperance in their ill advised
and often unfounded arguments against the new beer.
He reverted also to the scientific aspects of the intoxicating effects of
beer of 4.4 per cent strength and declared that more untruth than truth
had been written by opponents of the bill since the announcement made of
the bill's coming in the Speech from the Throne.
The reply of W. E. N. Sinclair was confined to practically one point, that
the principle of the O. T. A. is altered by the amendment, that the Attorney
General has practically admitted it by the act's unenforceability as it
now stands, and a declaration that the Tory party is no longer entitled
to claim it is the one and only temperance party and that the admenments
under discussion practically wipe out the whole temperance statute.
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