The temperance party did not take its defeat quietly. It maintained that the failure was due, not to any mistake in the principle of prohibition, but to erroneous legislation and weakness of administration; and a fresh agitation was soon started for a more perfect measure. But for some time action was delayed. The great stumbling-block in the way of the authorities doing anything is the doubt whether the right to legislate lies with the federal or the provincial authorities. The decision of the Privy Council in 1882, while settling the legality of the Scott Act, by no means made clear the exact line of demarcation between the powers of the greater and lesser Legislatures on this matter. In order to settle this, the Ontario Government has submitted to the Supreme Court a constitutional case which will clear up the matter. As soon as this is decided there, it will be taken on to the Privy Council, and it is expected that by early next year the matter may be finally settled. This doubt has given Dominion politicians a very good excuse for doing nothing. "When we get a prohibition law in Ontario," said Sir Oliver Mowatt, the Ontario Premier, in answer to a deputation (20th April, 1893), "we will want one that is enforced. There is no use in a nominal prohibition, no use in putting a prohibition law on the statute book, unless we can, and do, enforce it. You all know that a prohibition law is difficult of enforcement, as there are too many people interested in its not being enforced. If a law is not enforced to any extent, it is a thousand times worse than if there was no such law on the statute book. Any prohibition law under the present condition of public sentiment is difficult of enforcement; and if there were any reasonable doubt as to whether that law is valid or not, it would be hopeless to attempt to enforce it. We may be sorry for that, and unwilling to believe it; but if we endeavour to enforce in this country a prohibition law, when there is not a reasonable certainty of its being valid, it will be a hopeless task."