LIQUOR FIGHT IN CANADA.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1916, Page 3

LIQUOR FIGHT IN CANADA.

MANITOBA GOES DRY BY TWO-TO-ONE VOTE. ALL BARS AND LIQUOR STORES IN PROVINCES TO CLOSE BY JUNE 1. Winnipeg, Mareh 14. The Manitoba Temperance Act, which closes all hotels and club bars, and all wholesale liquor stores in the province from June 1 nex't, was carried by the people of Manitoba yesterday by a vote of more than two to one. Liquor may still be Imported by private persons from outside provinces, and the manufacture of liquor in the province for export is still permitted. These are the constitutional limitations placed on the province in legislation along this line by the federal authority, but to remove these limitations a mass meeting of citizens last night, amid great enthusiasm, endorsed a resolution calling on Sir Robert Borden and his government at Ottawa to introduce a Dominion-wide prohibition Act. EVEN WINNIPEG WENT DRY. Winnipeg is the first city of its size on the continent to go "dry" on its own vote. The liquor interests had looked confidently for a huge "wet" majority in the city, and counted on this to offset the i country Vote in a measure. North Winnipeg went "wet " by a majority of nine, but the three city ridings together gave a majority of 45Sfi for the Act.

"The decisive character of the result of yesterday's voting makes manifest in an unanswerable manner the. wisdom of the policy of having this question of prohibition decided on the basis of the •province's voters' lists as they stand," says the Free Press this morning. "The men of Manitoba have settled it, and they have settled it conclusively. "The interests and the individuals opposed to prohibition know that prohibition lias been made the law of the province by an overwhelming majority of the voters of. the men of the province, exercising their power of direct legislation on-this question. They know that behind that overwhelming majority of . the men of Manitoba stands the reserve ! army of the wonien of Manitoba. But without calling into action those reserve legions of women voters, the opponents of this great reform have been I overwhelmed at the polls by the votes view, it is eminently satisfactory that of. the men, and from every point of this great advance thus has been made."