ELECTIONS IN CANADA.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 260, 3 November 1925, Page 6

ELECTIONS IN CANADA.

Tie great and vital issue in the Canadian elections -eras the securing of an adequate majority, and this end does not seem to have been achieved. Mr. Mackenzie King was quite frank as to his reasons for deciding upon an election at, this time. Hβ was tired of attempting to carry on government without the tools of government, and -weary of submitting his measures to a eold.y critical House and an openly hostile Senate. It had become necessary for him to count his followers before deciding on any line of action, and now and again to bargain with other parties, so that it became impossible for him to cope with the great national questions which pressed for solution or to give the country any enterprising and aggressive policy. In fact, during the last lour years there have been so many checks and brakes in operation that the Government has scarcely been able to move at all. The tariff question has been a feature of the present campaign. The Liberals have a scheme for the creation, of an advisory tariff board, and the Conservatives are working along much the same lines. At present the Conservatives are in favour -of raising the tariff, while the Liberals are following their traditional policy of advocating tariff reduction. The Canadians themselves do not seem at all certain as to whether they want a higher tariff or not. Mr. Meighen says that the first tariff he will raise if he becomes Prime Minister will be the farm products tariff, and that he will give the farmers of the country the same hold on the markets of the Dominion as the American farmer has on the markets of the United States. To this Mr. Mackenzie King replies that Canada produces about four hundred million bushels of wheat, of which at the most she can consume a hundred million bushels, and that it is rank hypocrisy in such a situation to tell the farmer that a heavy duty on imported wheat will give him control of the home market. Another issue has to do with the railroads. A Senate Committee last session suggested a scheme for the amalgamation of the Canadian Pacific and the Canadian National. But there are insuperable obstacles in the way of any such plans. Tbp Canadian National's yearly deficit imposes a heavy burden on the Canadian people, but these same people are strongly opposed to handing over the National Railway to a private corporation. The King Government advocated some form of co-opera-tion and controlled competition, but this was too nebulous in form to arouse much interest. The National Railway is imposing a heavy burden on the taxpayer, and the Conservatives have used it to discredit their opponents. Mr. Mackenzie King has lost some support, but the issues are so complicated that the results can hardly he claimed as a reaction towards Conservatism.