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According to Pierre Berton in Marching As To War, it was the temperance (anti-drinking) and social welfare movements which spurred the suffrage movement in Canada. (Click for a 1913 Letter to Editor). Apparently in 1898 Canada held a plebiscite on prohibition with the people of the province of Quebec voting overwhelmingly against, so despite a slight majority for, Laurier decided against.The 1900 Budget reveals that alcohol was a great source of federal revenue!! But if anyone was to rant about the evils of drink it was Margaret's non-drinking husband, Norman. No mention is made on this subject by Margaret. And more telling, she left behind no newspaper clippings about Temperance either, despite the fact the Montreal Witness newspaper was founded by John Dougal to promote the Temperance Movement.
(But Margaret did speak a lot about suffrage and she did leave behind many clippings on the suffrage movement, in Canada, US, Finland and about women of achievement, women lawyers, aviators, inventors. She did clip one picture of Nellie McClung, the legendary suffragist from Manitoba who also fought for temperance, but Margaret appeared to admire ALL the international suffragists and militant suffragettes.)
Like the suffrage movement the TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT was international; The modern movement, apart from being political and social, says the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is characterized by the following features: 1) International organization 2) organized cooperation of women 3) juvenile temperance, 4) teaching of temperance in schools and elsewhere 5) scientific study of alcohol and inebriety.
This 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica has 10 pages on the subject of Temperance. According to the Britannica, the idea of temperance has been around since humans first fermented honey, barley, apples and grapes, etc. to make wine, but people only started to worry about the destructive effects of alcohol with the invention of hard liquor or spirits. . (In many quarters, potent liquors were considered health giving. Consider the term 'water of life' for whiskey. Indeed, many of the tonics of this period contained alcohol, including Lydia Pinkham's. CLICK))
In 1743 a Lord Lonsdale spoke in the British House of Lords and complained about drunken women 'stretched wretched on the pavement, insensible and motionless.' "These women who riot in this poisonous debauchery are quickly disabled from bearing children or produce children diseased from birth."
This speech spurred the Temperance Movement, according to the Britannica, because the issue of temperance suddenly became a social issue and not merely a moral issue.
The Temperance Movement got serious and political in the United States in and around 1808, with the publishing of some damning medical studies in the UK. Temperance Societies were formed in New York and Massachusetts.
Consumption of Alcohol per head in gallons annual average by country. 1901-05
France: wine 7.70 Beer 0.63, Spirits 1.36 for a total of 9.69. Then follows Italy, and Belgium Switzerland, where they drink more beer than wine. The UK is in the middle of the 13 country pack, with 3.42 annual consumption per head, preferring beer. In Canada, they don't drink any wine (how sad) preferring beer and whiskey and having 1.25 annual rate. Newfoundland comes last. 0.36 per head.
The Britannica article then editorializes, stating that irrespective of the Temperance Movement's goals, all that really matters is the true effect of alcohol on the population. It then deconstructs statistics relating to crime and alcohol and illness and alcohol in the UK.
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