Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1936. CANADIAN GOVERNMENTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 278, 5 September 1936, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1936. CANADIAN GOVERNMENTS.

The crisis through which the public finances of Canada are passing has resulted in a strain being placed upon the relationships of some of the Provinces with the Confederation. The Dominion Government has been able to meet its commitments with comparative ease, but the Provinces are embarrassed, being in turn troubled by the shortcoming of various municipalities. The Central authorities have taken action to protect the credit of the Dominion, by the adoption of the Loan Council scheme. But the lesser authorities are jealous of sacrificing any of their powers, and as acceptance of the loan scheme involved a considerable amount of financial surveillance by Ottawa, the Provinces raised a great clamour about their autonomy and rights. The objectors have gone so far even as to talk of secession from the Confederation. The latest instance of this was at Montreal, where Mr Houde, explaining his sudden retirement from the Mayoralty, predicted that disagreement on policies would lead straight to the secession of the Province of Quebec. Secession /■talk is not new in Canada, but nothing ever has come of it. Periodically there are demands from a few people that the three maritime Provinces leave the Confederation and set up for themselves as a separate Dominion. Sometimes it is the'three prairie Provinces which would cut the painter. British Columbia also has moods in which she would travel alone. There also are periodical movements for secession of areas from the Provinces, and in some instances the division has been made with advantage to both the original province and the off-shoot. At present there is an agitation in the northern part of Alberta for severance from the provincial authority, on the score that the area, in which there are 42,000 voters, would have improved political status by direct affiliation to the Dominion. The complaint is that under the present system there is lack of roads, of a railway outlet to the Pacific coast and of public buildings. In Northern Ontario the need for development roads has led to talk of the formation of an independent Province. There is thus always, with the growth or population, a desire for autonomy and doubtless as settlement increases some changes will be made. But so far as the Provinces are concerned, second thought always has concerned the secessionists that their sound interests lie in the maintenance of the Dominion unimpaired.