if kerala goes through with implementing prohibition one place will do very well mahe the one part of the union territory of puducherry on the west coast will be able to use its position within kerala to mint money from liquor trade this sleepy town almost a suburb of thalassery could easily witness one of the most rapid economic booms there is a precedent for this and like mahe it is one with links to the old french empire st pierre and miquelon is the name of a few islands in the north atlantic just 25 km off the coast of canada it is still part of france the last scrap of its north american empire held on to for access to the fishing grounds nearby much as mahe was retained during the british raj for purposes of the pepper trade major fortunes were once made through st pierre and the reason was the imposition of prohibition in the us in 1920 imposition came with a oneyear grace period for liquor traders to liquidate their stocks most of them spent that year looking for ways to get around prohibition and they realised that canada with its long lightly patrolled border with the us was the solution as one prohibition enforcement official noted dourly you cannot keep liquor from dripping through a dotted line but some like a young entrepreneur sam bronfman looked at a map of the atlantic and saw an even smarter way canada did not charge excise on liquor made for export and since st pierre was part of france they could legitimately export alcohol to the island from where it could be taken in ships out to sea and mysteriously end up in us ports boom on the rocks the canadians were fine with this since excise loss was more than made up in manufacturing income and this helped them deflect american demands to patrol the border where in any case much was going on this marine trade also gave good jobs for fishermen and used the extra capacity in shipping that had built up during world war i st pierre enthusiastically smoothed out procedures soon ships didnt even have to dock but could get paperwork done in the harbour before heading out again the islands levy of four cents a bottle quickly gave it customs income thrice the size of its annual budget this largely barren and poor scrap of land was suddenly awash in money and alcohol as well as side benefits like the wood from packing cases daniel ockrent in his entertaining history of prohibition last call the rise and fall of prohibition writes that one especially resourceful islander built a brandnew home out of a matched set suite of scotch cases he called it villa cutty sark mahe will probably not get hercules housing from keralas favourite super potent rum but it might be interesting to see if a property boom develops there and whether by any chance ownership of some of the