CANADIAN VIEW

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 133, 3 December 1930, Page 11

CANADIAN VIEW

"EXAMPLE OF NERVE"

MR. BENNETT'S LINE

The Imperial Conference, so far at least as its economic aspects are concerned, is on the rocks. It has been wrecked; and chief among the wreckers must be put the Prime Minister of Canada, said a recent issue of the "Manitoba Free Press." Less than three weeks have passed since Md. Bennett told the Government of Britain and the rest of the Empire, in loud ringing tones, what they, must do to be saved; and wo cannot but think that some sense of the unwisdom of that deliverance f is beginning to steal over the minds of Mr. Bennett's most fervent admirers, and ' conceivably over the mind of Mr. Bennett himself. Mr. Bennett was seconded less stridently by Mr. Scullin of Australia, and by General Hertzog of South Africa; and the sum of their demands was that the people of Great Britain should get busy and scrap the fiscal system which has served them for the better part of a century. To our way of thinking the performance of the Dominion Premiers was an exhibition on an unexampled scale of what is popularly termed nerve, which has already had most unfortunate effects and will continue to do mischici'. "NOT DONE." It is not open to one British nation to instruct another British nation in what it should do in a matter which is peculiarly its own concern. It is this rule of good tasto and elementary wisdom that Mr. Bennett has broken. Admirers of Mr. Bennett will hotly deny this, but perhaps they will sec matters in a different light if they will imagine the situation reversed, with Canada at the receivingl end. If Mr. Snowden were to say to Mr. Bennett that 131 the- opinion of the British Government inter-Imperial trade could best bo encouraged by tho removal of all tariffs, following this up with a peremptory demand that the Canadian tariff on British goods be removed, and a declaration that there could bo neither delay nor the consideration of alternatives, they having been rejected in advance —if Mr. Snowdon were to take this line, how indignant we should- be in Canada over his assurance and arrogance! But this is precisely what Mr. Bennett has done to the people of Great Britain as represented by the Labour Government. If it .be said that the Labour Government is not really representative of tho people of Great Britain, then Mr. Bennett must be held as appealing over tho heads of the Government of Great Britain to tho people of that country. Again let us apply the test of the situation in reverse. If Mr. Snowdon, having made his demand upon Mr. Bennett and received his refusal, were in his own person, or through the medium of an admiring Press, to say that Mr. Bennett did not speak for Canada, and tli.itHhc people would .be expected to reject him at tho next election in keeping with the wishes of the British Government, what then? If it be urged that at a Conferencesuch as the one held in London, thcro

ought to be no restraint upon any participant, the answer is that no Conference- gives one party to it the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of another. If this rule of commonsense and courtesy is not observed, nations will refuse to enter into Conferences. It is possible that the fiasco nf 1930 at London will set bounds to the institution known as the Imperial Conference. If the effect of the Conference is to make bad blood between the British nations—which will certainly be the effect of the present disagreement—the practice of holding them had better be left in abeyance. If Canada is instrumental in forcing an election in Great Britain, upon the question of food taxes, this country will earn the dislike and n enmity of those who "will resist the proposal; while here in Canada the alibi for Mr. Bennett's failure will be bitter attacks upon the perversity of the Little Engenders who constitute the Labour Government. What a fine contribution 'this will be to Imperial unity).