Early in the seventies, the temperance party started an agitation to obtain out-and-out prohibition. Petitions poured in on Parliament, and such pressure was brought to bear on individual members that the Dominion Government finally decided to introduce an Act which would give the people in every city and county the right to interdict the traffic there. The framing of the measure was left in the hands of the Hon. Robert Scott, a well-known lawyer and a member of the Government, and he drew up a Bill which seemed at the time as stringent and as workable as possible. The "Scott Act," as it was at once universally called, provided that on one-quarter of the electors of any city or town petitioning the Governor-General, he should cause a direct vote to be taken as to whether the place was to come under the Act or not. A bare majority would decide either way; and once the election was held, the question could not be re-opened for three years. At the end of three years, the defeated party might demand another poll. If the people decided to come under the Act, all licences in their district would lapse at the end of the year, without any compensation being paid to the licence holders, and then the ordinary manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage would be absolutely prohibited. The penalties provided for attempting to evade the law were--50 dollars for the first offence, 100 dollars for the second, and not more than two months' imprisonment for each subsequent conviction. Everything was done to make the recovery of the penalties as simple as possible; there was no power of appeal, and, while it was the special duty of the collectors of Inland Revenue to see that the law was enforced, any private individual had the power to institute a prosecution.