OVER-GOVERNED.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 10830, 31 March 1932, Page 3

OVER-GOVERNED.

PROPOSED MERGER IN CANADA. Winnipeg, Feb. 24 Holding the belief that Canada is over-governed, with the Federal and nine provincial governments for a population of less than 11.000,000 the Premier of Manitoba, Mr John Bracken, has proposed a merger of three so-called Prairie Provinces — Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta —with a single capital. His reasons are two: economies amounting eventually to perhaps £2,000,000 annually, and the creation of an agency through which the united West might speak with a common voice in national affairs.

Discussion of the scheme inevitably called attention to the case of the three Canadian provinces on the Atlantic —Nova. Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island — which among them have a population of one million and yet maintain their separate establishments. The Prairie Provinces have 2,400,000 people, and if they merged would constitute the largest province in the Dominion in area, with 758,000 square miles of territory although a million under Ontario and half a million under Quebec in population. Mr Bracken has pointed out that the legislatures of the three provinces now have altogether ISI members, that there are three sets of permanent officials with endless triplication of services in which important economies might be effected by unification of effort. On the other side it is argued that as one province its size would be incompatible with the highest efficiency; that the three provinces differ greatly in their general characteristics; that grave difficulty would be experienced in selecting’a. capital from the three cities which now hold that distinction.

The subject is being given consid-r eratiou in high circles and while at the moment it appears improbable that action will be taken in the future to put the plan into effect yet it is one of the possibilities.