BITTER FIGHT.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18548, 25 November 1925, Page 10

BITTER FIGHT.

CANADIAN ELECTIONS. CONFLICTING INTERESTS. WHY A NATIONAL POLICY IS IMPOSSIBLE. (SPECIAL TO "THE PBISS."i VANCOUVER, October 30. The General Election of Canada, held a \eur before the five-year term of Parliament iias expired, has proved, to the different Parties, different things. To the Conservatives 'it has shown thai the peopi-'> have more i-onndeuce in them, to the extent of giviug them fifty or so more seats, but yet not giving them a majority to carry on. To Jie Liberals, holding office at the dissolution, it has proven that the people are quite indifferent tu ihein, and can certainly do without their leader, the Premier, Mr Mackenzie King (known as King in Canada, not Mackenzie King, as he Ls called in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa), who was unseated. To the Progressives it has proved that the people have no time for a third Partv.

These are the premises from which must start any reckoning or reasoning as to the events of the future. The crystal is clouded by circumstances that do not exist in either of the three sister Dominions. The Premier and the Leader of the Conservatives both cheerfully admit that it is practically impossible to get a national policy for Canada, with the conflicting interests around. The extremes of Canada !s vast terrain, the Atlantic Maritiuies and the West, are agreed, roughly, on a low-tariff policy. The industrial eastern provinces are agreed, roughly, on a high tariff. Fiscally, there is no agreement, not even a compromise, between the two. On the contrary, there is bitterness between them that is fanned into a blaze that never is allowed to die down by the Press. The jealousy that has existed between Sydney and Melbourne, through the latter getting a quarter of a century's tenure of the Federal capital, with a promise of much more, contrary to the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the Commonwealth; the eoufusion between Cape Town and Pretoria, through the practice of Ministers moving the whole of their equipment ,and staff to the latter during the Parliamentary recess; these pale into insignificance compared with the disregard of each other's welfare exhibited openly by the West and East in Canada. An Unreliable Press. Twelve years ago the World Press [ Directory contained an article, holding the Press of Canada up to the world for the unreliability of its news. To-day, the position is unchanged; the charge coulu be made with equal logic. uf three papers in. Vancouver, two. have | published interviews, committing public | men to partial comment on' the elections that have been declared fakes by both in public. The men referred to are the Mayor of v aneouver, and the Political Correspondent of the Canadian Press Association, whose reports on all the Premier's meetings were sent: to all papers affiliated to that powerful organisation of the Press. The late commander of the Canadian CprpSjJjreneral Sir Arthur Currie, in a newspaper report circulated in the streets of this city before he rose to speak, was credited with recommending a citizen arhu, to take the burden, off Great Britain's shoulders—a- subject that he did not mention, nor did he dream of mentioning, in a fraternal address to brotherofficers in a gathering ,that was a replica of an officers' mess. ,

What exists in Vancouver exists in other centres in Canada. One cannot really believe news reports, or accept the judgment of editorials. The law of Australia, requiring all.newspaper reports and art-icles to be signed between the. issue and return of a writ at a Federal election, would be the only thing: possible to restore confidence in the Press.

In the election addresses and"~propaganda were many references to the United States and its fiscal policy. It has become the richest country in the world, has cornered the gold supply, and is chief creditor to the nations, simply—in the minds of many thousands of Canadian electors—because of the high tariff wall it has placed against the rest of the.world. Yet there are other thousands, probably as numerous, who object strongly to. paying 42 per cent, duty on United States motor-cars and motor fuel in a country where the proportion of car-owners, is relatively twice as great as in Australia and New Zealand. On the one side is the argument that massed production enables the United States to swamp Canada with manufactured goods at a price that prohibits competition from local -industry. On the other is-the contention that it is unduly harassing the farmers, the backbone of Canada's prosperity, by asking them to pay duty on their agricultural. machinery.

Election Slogans. The Pacific Coast fought the election practically on a slogan—"Keep the grain flowing westward"—in obedience to the desire to have a larger share of the wheat of the prairies shipped through the port of Vancouver, rather than through Montreal, where .it has gone hitherto, despite the longer haul. "Free trade with the United States" was another Press-inspired slogan. But very little was heard throughout tie campaign about Canada being a Dominion of Great Britain, or of her duty and responsibility as a member of the Imperial family. She is the smallest relative purchaser of British goods and the smallest relative contributor to the naval burden of Great Britain. Yet, lacking the emphasis that might have been laid on this disparity, Canada may go on in the same way, for all that the present-day politician will recommend the electorate to do to the contrary. In an election that was fought with bitterness, the public interest never flagged. The largest crowd at an election meeting was 15,000, to hear Mr Mackenzie King in Montreal, and there was an overflow of many thousands more. Iu comparatively small towns like Halifax, 6000 attended a meeting, while attendances of 10,000 were common in some of the larger provincial towns. Personal animus was injected into the fray. Undignified in the extreme and incompatible with the high office of Prime Minister was the incident that led to Mr Mackenzie King explaining to an election meeting the reasons why he did not go to the war. One newspaper went so far as to credit a candidate, a colonel, with the statement that the Prime Minister had taken out United States naturalisation papers in order to avoid military service. When the Primie Minister's libel writ appeared, the paper apologised to the colonel, saying that he did not make the remark. An enquirv as to why Quebeo votes solidly for Mackenzie King—62 seats, out of 63—illicits the information that Meighen's name is anathema to the French-Canadians thero, as it was he who introduced compulsory service in the cause of Great Britain In the Groat War. It is small wonder that, with all these issues to confuse it, the electorate was aoi aura, what it wanted. <