NEW CONSERVATIVE LEADER

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 11

NEW CONSERVATIVE LEADER

Canadian Party’s Choice

Ottawa, J uly 7.

Dr. R. J. Manion, who served in the medical corps in the Great War, was chosen to succeed Mr. 11. B. Bennett as Leader of the Conservative Party in the second ballot at the Conservative convention to-day. He'is an advocate of moderate tariffs and a greater measure of defence, with Imperial co-operation. Previously Mr. Bennett had declined a strong demand that he should continue as leader.

Mr. W. D. Herridge, Mr. Bennett’s brother-in-law, created a storm at the conference after his monetary reform resolutions had been rejected, with a declaration that the whole convention was "a lot of bunk” and that it was controlled by reactionaries. He was howled down with shouts of “Jeremiah,”

Dr. R. J. Manion was Minister of Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment in 1921 until the defeat of the Meighen Government. In the short Meighen administration of 1920 he was Postmaster-General. He was a member of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario for a time after the Government’s defeat. Dr. Manion won the Military Cross in the war when serving a - , medical officer with the 21st Battalion at Viuiy Ridge. He was born at Pembroke, Ontario, in 1881, of Irish-Canadian ancestry, and was regarded as the Irish Catholic representative in the Cabinet. He was later Minister of Railways. He was first nominated in Fort William as a Liberal in 1915. He was elected to the Commons as a Liberal Unionist in 1917. He in the author of “A Surgeon in the Army,” a gold medallist of Toronto University, and a vigorous speaker of the fighting type. He has three sons.