RECAPITULATION 
239 
that they do more harm than good. The introduction 
of national prohibition in America affords a case in 
point. In some of the States prohibition schemes 
had been tried for forty or sixty years, and though 
prohibition was not always carried out effectively, so 
that determined drinkers could usually get what they 
wanted if they were prepared to pay for it, yet the 
younger generation had for the most part failed to 
acquire the habit of drinking. Consequently the intro- 
duction of national prohibition was no hardship to 
them, and they readily acquiesced in it. The dwellers 
in the other States, especially those on the coast, had 
not lost the habit to any great extent, so that the 
compulsion entailed by the law stirred up a violent 
reaction, and determined them to obtain alcoholic 
liquor at any cost, by smuggling, moonshining, and in 
other ways. It is generally agreed that a more gradual 
introduction of prohibition would have been more 
successful in the long run. No one defends the saloon, 
and very few support the consumption of spirits, so 
it seems highly probable that regulations permitting 
the sale of beer and light wines would have been 
acquiesced in even by the border States, whilst the 
central States might have adopted the sale of beer of 
non-intoxicating strength. 
Canada is more fortunate than the United States in 
that her several provinces can legislate independently. 
They have individually tried various schemes of pro- 
hibition, but complete prohibition has been found to 
be too drastic, and all the provinces, with one minor 
exception, have now abolished it. There is still close 
Government control, especially over the sale of spirits, 
but if substantial opposition develops to the regulations