Page:Prohibition by A.T. Galt.djvu/8

8 this audience to-night that the Finance Minister who should succeed, by prohibiting the traffic in intoxicating liquors, in restoring $16,000,000 now lost to the people of this country and wholly wasted,—the Finance Minister who should succeed in doing that and should also save the indirect loss that arises from the injury that is done to society by it,—I say he will have no difficulty whatever in raising the sum of money which appears in the first instance to be thus lost to the revenue. (Loud cheers.) There can be no doubt whatever ahout it. One of the bugbears about taxation with which we are met is that of direct taxation. Now, I will venture to say this: that when you have educated the people of this country up to the point of prohibiting this traffic, you will at the same time have educated them up to the point of paying direct taxes sufficient to meet this deficiency. Another objection is that we would not be exactly free men. Well, now, that is a point upon which I take the liberty of differing entirely from those who urge it. The law now restrains our liberty in everything that is injurious to us—in most things at least. Liberty, as I understand the true definition of it, is freedom to do good. As a necessary consequence of the ability to do good, you must have the prevention of evil. Therefore freedom is in harmony with everything which goes to suppress vice in the community. Besides that, we have a case in point which must be familiar to you all. We know that for the last two hundred years the Indians have been prohibited from using liquors. There have been penalties attached to the people who sold it to them, and why? Because in the eyes of the law they were regarded as minors, as children unfit to take care of themselves, and consequently they were by law prevented from taking that which was injurious to them. No one supposes that this prohibition has injured the Indian; on the contrary, it is known that that is the only way by which any portion of that race has been preserved in North America. It is solely owing to their having been prevented from using intoxicating liquors that there are any of them alive to-day. Another objection is often raised, on the ground that the nation has no right to interfere with vested interests. In reply, I affirm that there is