September 30, 1920
What was happening a century ago this week from the front page of the Cowichan Leader.
September 30, 1920
The report of the Cobble Hill Fair shared equal billing with news of the latest developments as the deadline neared for the plebiscite on Prohibition—two columns each.
But first the four smaller items on the September 30th front page.
The provincial government had approved the addition of 20 teachers at the Duncan public school. But the shocking news for the Consolidated Schools board was a government report that, within a year, facilities at the high school would be inadequate.
The two-roomed, single-storey wooden building was already bursting at the seams with its two classes totalling 65 students: 29 boys and 36 girls. A presentation by students seeking financial assistance for their sports program won a $50 grant from the sympathetic trustees.
Also on the agenda, this won costing $500, was the need to construct two 20x30-foot sheds on the school grounds for boys’ and girls’ shelters during the winter. (200 students took their lunches to school each day.)
A new feature was the provision of a noon-hour hot drink for the new Health Nurse, Miss B. Hall. The Domestic Sciences equipment was being moved into the old, repaired school building and a new school bus had been added to the overtaxed Bell McKinnon Road-Westholme route at a cost of $155.70 per week.
The Girl Guides, evicted from their previous meeting place were allowed the use of a room in the school basement.
Accounts totalling $3214.60 were approved.
Local dog breeder the Rev. F.G. Christmas had won eight ribbons and a special prize for the best brace of sporting dogs, two pointers named White Queen and Whitfield Wanderer, in a Nanaimo dog show.
Mrs. R.F. Brett, Cowichan Station, won first place and two second place ribbons for her blue Persian male kitten Rip Van Winkle in Vancouver. Van Winkle had already won a silver cup for “the best kitten in British Columbia” by the Pacific Cat Kennels.
Like its Maple Bay counterpart the Cowichan Bay wharf, both federally domained, continued to be problematical for local governments even after MP J.C. McIntosh pleaded for emergency repairs of the federal minister of public works. The provincial government had refused to become involved for obvious reasons.
The Duncan Board of Trade pointed out that the federal treasury had allocated money for repairs but none had been done.
“No fat or unfit boys in or around Duncan” was the provocative title of the local YMCA’s fitness program. The first step on the road to physical fitness was that of character, according to L.C.B. McKinnon. Already, 70 boys had attended summer camp and laid, he said, the foundation that would be of life-long value to them. Males of all ages, schoolboys to seniors, were invited to participate in forthcoming fitness classes in the Agricultural Hall, in afternoon and evening sessions. Some equipment such as parallel and horizontal bars would be provided.
Duncan and Cowichan Station were onside in the goal to “help the boy to find himself”.
Thanks in part to continuing fine weather, the Cobble Hill Fall Fair had had another successful show. Guest speaker MLA Kenneth Duncan complimented the exhibitors for their efforts. So many had entered multiple displays that judging had taken longer than usual. Many of them were said to have excelled those of the recent Cowichan Fall Fair.
Of particular note were “ladies’ work (including garments made from flour sacks, crocheted items, hand embroidery, knitted men’s socks, cushions and quilts), domestic sciences and garden produce. White carrots and sweet peas caught The Leader’s notice.
Complementing the day-long activities were a tea room operated by the Girl Guides.
Which brings us to the emotional subject of booze—or the lack of, thanks to B.C.’s flirtation with Prohibition.
Two columns—one-third—of the front page recounted a meeting of the Liberty league at Cowichan Station to discuss the forthcoming referendum before an audience of 200. People had come from miles around to hear MLA Duncan give his view in favour of a government-run liquor control board. In short, he was in favour of a return to the sale of liquor but under strict provincial control.
Chairman C. Wallich stated his belief that Prohibition was “iniquitous, fanatical and despotic, an attack on British liberty. What next? No smoking or Sunday shooting?”
Duncan replied that “the worst aspect of Prohibition was that it created contempt for the law by [otherwise] law-abiding citizens. (As America would learn in due course at great cost.)
If Prohibition were lifted and a government controlled LCB established, he continued, people would support and help enforce the system.
Col. C.E. Collard spoke of his 27 years around the world with the Royal Marines, and wherever he’d been stationed, his castle had been his home. Meaning that he’d been free to do as he pleased by having a drink or two, “as long as he behaved himself”.
Prohibition meant that he “was an irresponsible person who could not be trusted in his own home”.
“If that is Canada’s idea of freedom, I tell you it is not mine. I resent it bitterly and will fight it to the finish.”
The only benefactors of Prohibition, said the colonel, were the bootleggers.
His parting shot was to say that Prohibition was also bad for immigration.
George Cheeke thought the existing law was uneconomical to enforce and that it was wrong for one-half of the population who supported the law to impose their beliefs on the other half.
C.T. Cross, vice-president of the Victoria Liberty League, thought that the never-ending costs of enforcing Prohibition would require further taxation and “take all the money in the country, so that there would be no more for roads and schools”.
So it went. Obviously there were few pro-Prohibitionists in the crowd.
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