1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

232 THE FLOWING BOWL liquor traffic," says an authority on the ethics ot total abstinence, " there has been much con troversy. Its opponents have contended that it is an invasion of personal liberty ; that even when imposed by a majority it is a violation of the rights of the minority ; and that all that is really required is such a magisterial and police super vision as will repress drunkenness as much as possible, and inflict different penalties on offenders. To this statement various answers are returned. With regard to the violation of personal liberty the prohibitionists maintain that in one sense all law interferes with liberty. A good law interferes with the liberty to do wi'ong. Therefore, they say, assuming that the common sale of drinks wrongs the public, a law interfering with this wrong is in accord with true liberty. They hold that individual profit must be sub servient to the public welfare, Salus populi suprettia lex. If hardship is alleged as affecting the buyer, the statement of John Stuart Mill is quoted, who declared that every artificial augmentation of the price of an article is prohibition to the more or less poor; yet there is hardly any government which does not in some way or other legislate so that the price of intoxicants is increased. As to the possibility of extirpating intemperance by means of strict regulation as to the sale of drink, the prohibitionists affirm that the existing system has been tried for hundreds of years, and often under the most favourable circumstances for its success, and that yet the licensing system, as judged by its fruits, is confessed to be a melancholy failure."