NEIGHBOURS DIFFER.

Evening Star, Issue 20137, 30 March 1929, Page 12

NEIGHBOURS DIFFER.

Sixer; flic implied indictment of their inefficiency contained in President Hoover's inauguration speech it would appear that Prohibition enforcement agents in the United States have lost their sense of bain nee. The sinking of the vessel Pm Alone lias been followed by equally drastic measures on land. Possessed of a search warrant in respect of a suspected liquor dispensary in a town in the State of Illinois, three Prohibition agents were denied entry. They went away for weapons. .About eighteen months ago, when the SaccoVanzetti trials were agitating the “alien” population in the States, a Chicago mass meeting was promptly dispersed by tiio police with tear-gas bombs. These were said to have left

no permanent ill-effects. Tho precedent was good enough for the Prohibition agents, but they evidently thought this a case for extreme measures, if the report that they employed that diabolical compound known as mustard gas is correct. As the State was Illinois, it is probable that the agents had their headquarters at Chicago, and that city has been reduced to amazing measures to cope with the anarchical violence which its long era of misgovernment bred. Chicago stands on the shore of Lake Michigan, one of the Croat Lakes across which the rum-runners conduct a huge trade. Ry comparison the Atlantic front of the war with the smugglers is quite inactive. The matter has for some months past been the subject of discussion between the Canadian and United States authorities. Last December thirty-Canadians were indicted before a grand jury in Buffalo (U.S.A.) for conspiracy to violate the Prohibition laws, which evoked from the ‘Providence Nows’ the comment that “ to all crimes committed in the name of enforcement wo must now add the crime of stupidity.” ft will thus ho seen that, though the vessel I’m .Clone was not sunk in the locality which till recently has been the prominent venue, the incident is likely to bring to a head tho whole question of the relations between the two countries arising out of Prohibition and its attempted enforcement. Canada lias now tho right to conduct licr own diplomacy with her neighbour, and the Canadian legation in Washington has communicated to the State department its determination to have all questions of jurisdiction and rights under treaties and international law definitely settled, if necessary by appeal to international arbitration. As indicating public opinion in Canada, the ‘ Montreal Gazette ’ commented as follows on tho Great Lakes situation : " If the United States chooses to have so-called bone-dry legislation, it is, ot course, none of this country's business: but if the United States, with most elaborate and expensive machinery, finds it impossible to enforce bone-dry legislation iu the face of auti-Pi'ohilu-tion sentiment at homo, neither is that the business of Canada. The dominion has already gone a fairly long way by international agreement toward lightening tho labours of the Volstead agents along the border, and that obliging and friendly attitude lias resulted in, or at any rate has not prevented, some incidents in which the conduct ol enforcement officials has been much too higb-handed to suit tho majority of Canadians. The duty of the Canadian Government in this matter is clear enough, and it is one that can he discharged in nil friendliness to the United States. Canada has a well-defined policy, exemplified in the laws of t.hc land, for the regulation of exports of Canadian commodities- including liquor manufactured in the dominion, and thoi'c appears to ho no justification for modifying this policy or altering those laws merely because a neighbouring country, however friendly, has a different policy and different laws. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that tho United Slates law has been shown to be incapable of enforcement, despite the millions of money used annually in the effort; but with that failure the Government of Canada has nothing to do. Tho United States does not attempt to enforce Canadian laws, whatever may bo said of other national theatres, and there can be no reason which will warrant the employment of Canadian administrative machinery, 'operated at the expense of tho Canadian taxpayer, in the enforcement of a law enacted by tho United States for its own people,”