AFFAIRS IN CANADA

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 104, 29 October 1931, Page 4

AFFAIRS IN CANADA

REVIEW OF THE SESSION

LIBERALS UNDER CLOUD

MR. BENNETT'S ACHIEVE-

MENTS

(From "Tlio Post's" Repitsentative.) VANCOUVER, 19ih August.

The Parliament of Canada has gone into recess, after sitting for five months. Tho session, begun at slow pace, acquired momentum as it progressed, and ended in whito-hot disclosures regarding tho Bcauharnois campaign fund scandal, which, to quote Mr. MacKenisio King's sorrowful phrase, "plunged the Liberal Party into the valley of humiliation. 31 Eeauharnois put every other political activity of the year into the shade. The naive admission of its president that a corporation that was initiated three years ago with a cash sale of £10,000, could pay three-quarters of a million dollars to the Liberal Party at the last General Election and that its offer of funds to the Conservative' Party brought a flat refusal from Mr. .Bennett had the effect of strengthening the position of the Conservative Government to the point that no probable circumstances in. sight could unseat' it. The session, apart from this unsavoury debacle, was as fruitful as any since the days of the immediate post-war reconstruction period. The whole taxation structure was readjusted; the tariff was renovated in upward revision of 1200 items, as a. direct answer to the Smoot-Hawley fecal exploits of the United States; a blank cheque was given the Government in tho matter of relief of unemployment and drought distress on the Prairie; the people rallied to the aid of the country in an extraordinary manner in doubling the limit set by the Government in its loan 'conversion proposals; the. trade, reciprocity treaty with Australia left a very friendly feeling in both countries; the needs of tho Budget were met by an increase in fax on higher incomes of individuals and corporations and -in. the sales tax, apart from the tariff, causing a minimum of popular discomfort. ■ FINANCIAL ADMINI3TBAXION. Tho new Tariff Board, divorced from I party politics, is to be given powers that will enable it to review any phase of any industry remotely affected by the tariff. Financial administration has been tightened up by the creation of a Controller at the Treasury, on lines approaching that of the Budget Controller at Washington, who has the functions of a President of a Board of Directors in relation to the heads of spending departments—a system that has.met with notable success in correlating the various items of public expenditure in a business balancesheet. Over Liberal, protests that he was constituting himself a, Dictator—a Mussolini of tho "West—Mr. Bennett persuaded Parliament to grant him. unlimited powers in the matter of finaneiag unemployment relief works and ameliorating distress on the Prairie. The House was evidently satisfied with his disposition of £16,000,000 in providing a public works and railway policy last year to deal with a wave of unemployment and financial stringency among farmers that had no counterpart since the world-wide slump of ten years ago. There has gradually grown up ameliorative machinery in which tho Federal and Provincial Governments ana the Local Authorities have co-operated, which should make the work of relieving distress easier than hitherto. Extraordinary powers, aimed at the "preservation of peace, order of good government," were sought by Mr. Bennett, and granted by Parliament, in connection with his unemployment relief policy. The Communist element has been very active, especially on" the Prairie, since unemployment reached its peak. All are agreed that the Communists are working, in direct touch with Moscow, for the abrogation of the present form, of Government. As most of the agitators are recently-ar-rived immigrants, mainly from Europe, Mr. Bennett has secured legislative authority strengthening facilities for deportation. His attitude toward Communism is well known; he should now be in a position to strengthen the hands of the Provincial Authorities in dealing with the menace.