Prohibition and the Liquor Traffic.
It is reported that one feature of Gladstone's reported plan for home-rule in Ireland, is to be a provision proportioning Ireland's representation to her contribution to the revenue of the empire. Commenting on this, the S. F. Chronicle says:— “This would lead to some curious results. One of the chief sources of imperial revenue in Ireland is the excise duty on whisky. If parliamentary representation is to be regulated by revenue, and not by population, then it will be the whisky that will vote, and not the men. Such a plan would work curiously in this country. If congressional representation were regulated by the amount of money contributed by each State to the Federal Treasury, California, which pays $2,600,000 for internal revenue, should have fifty times as many members as Maine, which only pays $50,000. This would probably lead to the repeal of the Maine law.” It would be a queer law which would make the amount of liquor produced and consumed the basis of representation, and we hope that no country will ever place such a premium on the liquor business. As it is now, whisky largely controls this country. But what does the Chronicle mean when it says that the introduction of such a plan into this country would lead to the repeal of the Maine law? Hasn't it, in common with nearly all secular papers, told us again and again that the Maine law had no effect on the liquor traffic? Haven't all the drunkard-makers in the country bitterly opposed prohibition, because prohibition is so ineffective a measure against the liquor traffic? The truth will occasionally appear, and the truth in this case is that everybody knows that it is a fact that prohibition and free whisky cannot exist in the same State.