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Liquor and the Liberal State
Drink and Order Before Prohibition

Dan Malleck (Author)

9780774867160

Hardback, published 1 May 2022

416 pages, 6 tables, 4 illus., 3 graphs, 1 map
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.74 kg

Cultural pastime, profitable industry, or harmful influence on the nation? Liquor was a tricky issue for municipal, provincial, and federal governments after Confederation. Liquor and the Liberal State traces how the Ontario provincial government's takeover of liquor regulation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries involved both discrete local politics and expansive constitutional questions.

Dan Malleck explores how notions of individual freedom, equality, and property rights were debated, challenged, and modified in response to a vocal prohibitionist movement and equally vocal liquor industry. While the liquor licensing regime helped build a vast patronage base for the governing Liberal Party, some believed it exceeded the constitutional authority of the province. The drink question became as political as it was moral – a key issue in the establishment of judicial definitions of provincial and federal rights and, ultimately, in the crafting of the modern state. This lively and meticulous work demonstrates the challenges governments faced when dealing with the seemingly simple, but tremendously complicated, alcoholic beverage.

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction: Arguing over Liquor and Liberalism

Part 1: Managing the Province's Liquor Problem

1 The Place of the Government in the Drinks of the People

2 Centralization, I: The Crooks Act

3 Power and Influence in the New System

4 Politics, Law, and the License Branch

Part 2: The Complications of Liquor in a Federal Liberal State

5 How Drinking Affects the Constitution, 1864–83

6 McCarthy and Crooks Enter a Tavern, 1883–85

7 Attempting to Water Down the Scott Act, 1884–92

8 Plebiscites as Tools for Change? 1883–94

9 Talking and Blocking National Prohibition, 1891–99

10 Dodging Decisions at the End of the Liberals' Era, 1894–1905

11 Drinking in Whitney's Conservative Liberal State, 1905–07

12 Centralization, II: Beyond the Crooks Act, 1907–16

Conclusion: Liquor, Liberalism, and the Legacy of the Crooks Act

Appendix 1: Questions Sent by the Select Committee

Appendix 2: Liquor-Related Laws in Force in Ontario

Notes; Index

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