THE CANADIAN ELECTIONS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19986, 22 July 1930, Page 6

THE CANADIAN ELECTIONS.

PARTY POLICIES. LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE. Ffton A Special Correspondent. VANCOUVER, June 25. The Liberal Government goes to the country on threo main issues: its reco»d, tho Dunning budget, and tlio representation of Canada at tho next Imperial Conference. Tlio Party, in tho words of tho Prima Minister, Right Hon. W. LMackenzie Kiug, stands for a policy which will benefit Canadian consumers, foster Imperial trade, and \itally aid in maintaining a British market for Canadian wheat. Mr King's Government had seven successive surpluses. In the previous fifty years there were only eight. Taxation has been reduced by £24,000,000 in the last five years. It has increased the British preference to goods brought into Canada through Canadian ports, reduced duties on tho implements of production and motor vehicles, and made numerous tariff adjustments to meet the rapid development of Western Canada and the need for securing markets for a great agricultural population.

"High protection and free trade are sectional policies when applied to existing conditions In Canada," said tho •Prime Minister. "The 1930 Budget was framed first of all to meet a situation in Canada arising from the requirements of different sections and economic classes for policies suited to her '"needs. But because of the place which Canada has come to occupy in international trade, it was influenced also, and in a special degree, by our relations with two countries with which wo are most closely associated in matters of commerce. The one is Great Britain. The other is the United States. When Mr Hoover assumed office as president of the United States on March 11th, 1920 t the United States Congress began carrying out a far-reaching revision of the tariff in concert with those given by the Republican Party during the identical negotiations of the previous years. As that revision proceeded, it became increasingly apparent that the duties against Canadian agricultural products would be raised to such an extent as to cut off a considerable proportion of the existing campaign exports to that country'. In these circumstances, and in accordance with our policy of using every endeavour to find wider markets for Canadian products, the Government gave instructions to the tariff advisory board to examine American imports with a view to determining to what extent these imports could be purchased from Great Britain or from other parts of th§ British Empire.' Such is Mr Mackenzie King's reply to the Conservative charge that he has "stolen their thunder." In his now tariff tho Budget was, he said, tho response of the present Government to a combination of internal and externa! factors in our economic situation. It contained four main proposals, each of them des : "ned to assist tho great uuderlving purpose of assuring continuance and increase of nrosperitv m Canada, and of the widening, as far as possible, of the boundaries of our foreign trade: — . . 1. The iron and steel revision. 2. Countervailing duties. 3. The fruit and vegetable tariff revision. 4. Extension of the British preter-

enee. "Die -Prime Minister's reply to the Conservative charge that his Government is to blame for tho exodus to tho United States is that he should be entitled to credit for the fact that in the last two vears there has been a bice homeward trek across the international boundary. Conditions in Canada to-day are he claims, far better than in the United States, and will be hetteT if the electorate and the Tmnerial Government implement his inter-Empire trade nroposals, on which his Government stakes its life. The Conservative Policy.

' "Give Canada a chance" is, in effect, the plea the Leader of the Conservative Party, Hon. R. B. Bennett, is putting beforo the electors. Mr Bennett's seven-sided pledge is ss follows: — 1. Protection for Canadians in the development of their natural resources, agricultural, and industrial life, and for their consumers from exploitation. 2. To foster and develop agriculture and the live stock and dairying industries ' 3. Stabilisation of economic conditions, continuity of trade, and freedom from manipulation of home and foreign 4. Development of interprovincial trade, and of a Canadian fuel policy, and development of a foroign market. 5. To foster and support a plan for great Empirfe trade, based on mutual advantage. 6. National old-age pensions, to replaco the present system under which half-cost is borne by the provinces. 7. Such compensation adjustments 88 will ensure the benefit of the •above policies to ft very part of Canada. This Mr Bennett describes as the "Conservative declaration of faith." Ua amplifies it with the statement that, when in power, lie will undertake tho complete reconsideration of Canada's present trade treaties, under which, lie claims, manufactured goods of other nations find their way into Canada at minimum rates of duty. "We pledge ourselves to the improvement of the whole scheme of Canadian transportation, northward by completion of the Hudson Bay route and construction of such branches as may be necessary to render it most readily available-to every part of Canada; the construction of a railway from the Peace river to the Pacific; east and west by the development of the St. Lawrence deep waterway plan; increasing port facilities on the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the establishment of a national highway system." Mr Bennett consistently charges Mr Mackenzie King as being pro-American in his fiscal policy, and in all negotiations between the two countries. "A pitiful gesture of propitiation" is the term he applies to the Government's response to the American tariffs. With its' duties, the Governmerit was protecting not Canaaa, out our enemies, he says. Mr Bennett demands a quid pro quo for Canada's Empire preference.. The products of Canada and the welfare of the Canadian worker must be safeguarded. The Conservative leader lays at the door of the Government the loss of a million young people to the United States since the war. The Government, he says, let them go, made an effort to establish industries, to create markets for Canada's products, and thereby give a foreign flag. On this question of market, Mr Bennett says:—"The employment by the Conservative Party of the principle of national safeguarding will not permit any producer to avail himself of our protective measures fairly to profit at the expense of the consumer. For it will apply equally to the four great masses of the country; the farmer, the worker, the manufacturer, the consumer." j Unless Canada is to oecome a vassal of the United States, Mr Bennett urges |

the Dominion to follow out tho policy that built up that country. "The United States learned a long time sgo that to become a great nation it must first, look to itself. It therefore began to build up its home market by keeping out; of it the goods of other nations. There was a time when, if foreign countries had had their way, they could have smashed its youthful industries, dried up its revenue, and wrecked its transportation systems, and left it a country of idle workmen, of _ futile manufacturers, of starving agriculturists. Look at it now —marching .to the slogan of 'America First.' ■'