The Ontario Sunday Law.
By F. D. Starr
As perhaps most of the readers of the Sentinel know, the Ontario Sunday law has been before the Court of Appeals of the Dominion of Canada to test its constitutionality. The most of the time May 22-28 was devoted to the hearing of the case by that court in Osgood Hall, Toronto. Some very interesting facts were brought out during the hearing, and some very strange positions were taken. The question is, whether the provincial government of Ontario has the right to enact a Sunday law, or whether this power rests solely with the Dominion government (of Canada). By the Act of Federation, all criminal laws belong to the Dominion government, and the provinces have no right to make or alter criminal laws. Sunday laws have recently been classed in Nova Scotia as criminal laws. If this decision is correct, then the Sunday laws of the provinces are evidently unconstitutional. So the matter was carried up for a final hearing. The Lord’s Day Alliance made a very strong effort to have the constitutionality of the law established. Two eminent lawyers argued the case for three days before the court in behalf of the Sunday law. The lawyer for the other side of the question used but one half-day. It was very persistently affirmed by the lawyers for the Lord’s Day Alliance that the question is not in any wise a religious one, also that it is not a question of morality. It was stated that the name of the institution as it appears in the law, the Lord’s-Day Act, might give to the matter a religious appearance, but that was misleading. Though the day is called the Lord’s day, yet the law concerning its observance is purely a civil statute, regulating the conduct of men with each other. It was also stated that the violation of the law did not embrace anything immoral. When asked by the judge how this could be shown, or why the speaker took this position, the reply was “because there is nothing in the violation of the law that affects a man’s conscience.” This is certainly a very interesting statement, and we wish it might be proclaimed in the ears of men everywhere, that there is nothing in the violation of Sunday laws that need disturb any man’s conscience. But this would be strange doctrine for Sunday law advocates across the line from us, surely. But the statement is just as good there as here. Another very interesting position that was taken by the Sunday law advocates was that it would be an impracticable thing to have a national Sunday law, that each province should be allowed to make its own Sunday laws. The argument in favor of this position was that it would not be fair, for illustration, to ask Quebec to conform to the ideas of Ontario people in regard to Sunday observance, that these French speaking people had very different ideas of Sunday observance than we of English extraction have, and they should be allowed to have laws in conformity with their customs and ideas. On the other hand, it would not be right for Quebec to ask Ontario to adopt her ideas of Sunday observance, and that as there are various notions about Sunday observance in the various provinces, therefore each province should be allowed to make its own Sunday laws. This is again very important information for Sunday law advocates everywhere. Hear, all of you. A national Sunday law—the very thing Sunday law agitators are clamoring for—is an impracticable thing. Then, forever abandon the project. Different races and different provinces and states differ in their ideas of Sunday observance, and so it would be unjust to make a law bringing all to a compulsory observance of the same law. But why stop with the State or Province? Suppose in two adjoining counties men differ in their ideas of this matter, why is it any more just to have a Sunday law applying alike to both counties? And further. Suppose that in two adjoining neighborhoods the sentiment is different, yes, suppose two families living side by side differ in their ideas concerning the rest day. Shall we have a law applying alike to both? Provinces are only neighborhoods grown large. The rights of one man are of precisely the same nature as those of a collective body of men. The folly and absurdity of any government, state or nation, presuming to establish a Sunday law was most clearly evident to the attentive listener to the above arguments. Let these two points be remembered, that Sunday observance is not a matter of conscience (of a well-instructed conscience at least), and that the idea of a national Sunday law is a farce, on account of its manifest injustice. F. D. STARR.