The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

1 "And, ther:efore, no maiter what case may be brought before the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court, no matter wgat litigration might be proposed to be sent to the Judicial Committee of his Majesty's Privy Council, at the 'same time tgis jurisdiction rested in the Do-- minion Government, in the Dominion Parliament, and there could have been no excuse whatever for those having the'great subject at heart not to make an attempt to crystallize their view into legisla.tion on the statute books of Can-- ada. (Opgoaition applause.) _ And so, sir, Dr. Schultz thought, and he brought forward the resolution which I have al-- luded to. "Now, sir, my hon. friend the leader of this Government moved at that time the following amendment :--'Whereas firave doubts exist'--and I notice in the Hans-- ard rePort following the words 'grave doubts' the words 'ironical jeers'-- * Whereas grave doubts exist whether, in the provisions of the B.N.A. act, 1867, this House has power to deal with the traffic in intoxicating liquor as a bever-- age, axd whereas the Court of Error and Appedl of the Province of Ontario has referred --the case to the Si;premo Court' --and now, Mr. Speaker, I am going to Mr. Ross' Amendment. "Now, sir, this was the attitude which my hon. friend assumed with regard to | this question in 1877. . Of course there 'are evil--disposed men in this country, iConservatives and others, no doubt, who bave suggested from time to time that my hon. friend's principal object then was to protect the Mackenzie Govern-- | ment, of which he was a supporter, from the possible. consequences of any sudden |legislation on the great question of pro-- hibition. However that may be, I do not propose to dwell upon tiat phase of the situation. We shall now, Mr. Speaker, make a long jump from 1877 Ito 1803. For sixteen long years, so far [ aa my hon. friend was concerned, at any rate, no hand was lifted to abate this terrible evil which has for so long oc-- cupled this position in the Province of Ontario. For half a generation in the Province of Ontario tge hon. leader of this Government made no attempt to bring about that state of affairs, the de-- girability of which had been the text of pass over half a generation, and we nna that this case which was referred to the Court of Appeal for the Province of On-- tario is there yet--'the Court of Error and Appeal in the Province of Ontario has referred a case to the Su?reme Court, whereby the relative jurisdiction of the Provincial and Dominion Legisla-- tures over the liquor traffic will be ar-- gued ; be it therefore resolved, that this House, while not receding from any pre-- vious declaration on the importance of a prohibitot-f' li(}uor law, deems it inex-- pedient in this House at present to ex-- press any opinion regarding the course which ought to be taken by the Govern-- ment in gcnling with this guestion.' "Now, that was the amendment moved by my hon. friend when the Hon. Mr. Schultz endeavored, in his own way, to bring this question before the Parlia: ment of Canada for a decision, in order thta a prohibitory law should be passed ; my hon. friend stood in the doorway and revented the hon. gentleman from Kringing in the bill. (Opposition ap-- plause.) o T3 a _ _"At that time, and I am quoting from Hansard now, my hon. friend spoke as follows :--'In order to satisfy himself that no unreasonable delay would occur by not putting any reso{utlon on the paper this session, he placed himself in communication with Attorney--General Mowat, who had charge of the case on behalf of the Government of the Pro-- vince of Ontario, which is expected to be xeferred to the Supreme Court, and which, he thought, would involve the question of jurisdiction. In this corres-- pondence he assumed that it was their ]ntention. in the case which had been appealed recently from the Court of Er-- ror and Appeal, to open up the whole question of the jurisdiction of the Pro-- vincial Legislature.! From 1877 to 1893. 147